


The Has-Beens

by stitchy



Category: IT (1990), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Childhood Friends, Eddie is Out Of The Closet, Falling In Love, Family, First Time, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Grown Up Theater Kids, Humor, M/M, Miniseries canon ONLY, POV Richie Tozier, Parenthood, Period Typical Attitudes, Richie Has Stalled Out Interpersonally, Role Reversal, Romance, Secret Relationship, no clown au, single dad Richie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-12 18:35:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29763873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stitchy/pseuds/stitchy
Summary: If you asked Richie to name the three people least likely to be handling the animal talent on this set, he would say Sandra Day O’Connor, Mike Tyson, and Eddie Kaspbrak. All preposterously out of place, and all uniquely intimidating. But he swivels around in the makeup chair, takes two steps, and there he is,his Eddie,with a furry monstrosity heaped in his arms like a museum with no coat check, milling around by Camera 2. Here we go: initiating Jell-o spine! Locking knees into position! Dumping sweat reserves to palms inthree, two, one!With any luck Richie will shoot through the roof at an angle that crash lands in the ocean. Then the cat hisses at a boom op, and Eddie shushes it with a withering scowl so familiar Richie breaks out in a snorting giggle he hasn’t had genuine access to since he was a snotnosed kid. Not in decades. Not since Eddie declined to take their little double act from radio to the screen, and Richie went ahead without him.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 43
Kudos: 97





	The Has-Beens

**Author's Note:**

> [shrugs] I don't know how much you care about a little futzing with the canon timeline in an AU this alternate, but this starts in November/December 1989. This one goes out to all my fellow 80's babies from Long Island, I guess ;)

If you asked Richie to name the three people least likely to be handling the animal talent on this set, he would say Sandra Day O’Connor, Mike Tyson, and Eddie Kaspbrak. All preposterously out of place, and all uniquely intimidating. But he swivels around in the makeup chair, takes two steps, and there he is, _his_ Eddie, with a furry monstrosity heaped in his arms like a museum with no coat check, milling around by Camera 2. Here we go: initiating Jell-o spine! Locking knees into position! Dumping sweat reserves to palms in _three, two, one!_ With any luck Richie will shoot through the roof at an angle that crash lands in the ocean. Then the cat hisses at a boom op, and Eddie shushes it with a withering scowl so familiar Richie breaks out in a snorting giggle he hasn’t had genuine access to since he was a snotnosed kid. Not in decades. Not since Eddie declined to take their little double act from radio to the screen, and Richie went ahead without him.

 _“Son of a-_ ” Richie muffles himself and ducks behind a flat.

Did Ned arrange this? Or the director? Just how much buzz does he think a surprise reunion of the original Derry Boys would generate for a shoe commercial?

No... No way. Ned hasn’t been around long enough to know about Eddie. No one knows about Eddie! They recast him. He’s Richie’s little secret, his paragon of partnership that keeps him slamming his head against the wall, trying to re-bottle lightning. 

And after years and miles and miles of tape in the can, he’s _here_ so Richie can dance on camera with his cat? Richie shakes his head and shudders. Nope. Not computing.

The makeup lady leans into his field of vision like a doctor in a medical drama where someone is coming out of a coma. “You okay, Rich?”

“Ha! You bet,” he laughs, tugging the kleenex out of his collar. On second thought, he jams them back in with his clammy, jittery fingers. “You might have to pancake me again though, Nina. I think I just hit menopause.”

Nina rolls her eyes. “Good thing you’re only being shot in a wide, then.” Someone on the other side of the fake ballroom wall Richie’s hiding behind calls his name and she surrenders his position immediately, the traitor.

Richie inches his way toward Jerry, the director, still struggling with the no knees thing. Might work to his benefit, though. Maybe if he keeps from making any sudden movements, he can avoid detection.

“Richie! Don’t be a stranger!”

He’s not! He might wish it, though!

Jerry grabs his elbow when he’s finally in range, tethering him in place as Eddie finally lifts his eyes from the cat.  
  
 _"Oh."_

“Uh. Hi, Eddie.” Richie clears his throat. “Hope your contract’s got a no biting, no scratching clause.”

 _Fangs._ That’s what Richie expects from the boy/man/ghost of Crappy Mistakes Past. At best he deserves a groan. Not the charming little chuckle he gets. Not big doe eyes positively sparkling at him. _Man,_ he’s really swanned up and grown into his looks since they last saw each other.

“Hello, Richie. It’s nice to see you again.” After a starry moment, Eddie remembers to hoist the cat up for an introduction, too. “This is Buttercup.”

Jerry claps his hands. “Fantastic, you’ve already met,” he says.

Eddie swings Buttercup away protectively. “Oh, clapping is one of her signals, please don’t.“

“An actor you can’t applaud,” Richie gasps. “Well, more for me!”

Again, to Richie’s shock, Eddie laughs. “Saves me from balancing a treat on your nose at the end of every take,” he smirks back.

Richie’s so relieved that Eddie doesn’t hate him,that he could walk on air, but the shoot only requires some grapevining, spins, and tap shuffles on the plain old floor. As he matches each of Buttercup’s tricks, he catches himself glancing to Eddie for approval first, then the director. Luckily they’re both aiming for as close to an _Anchors Aweigh_ gag as a live animal will allow.

When they finish with the ballroom set they wrap for the day. Tomorrow they’ll do the disco version, which is a totally different installation. Hopefully the accompanying wardrobe won’t be as sweaty. As soon as he’s given the okay, Richie pries open his bowtie and starched collar and wanders over to his costar’s vanity to schmooze. There, Buttercup sits as patiently as any professional, peeking out of her crate while Eddie signs some paperwork or other.

“Sure you can’t spare a vittle or two for me?”

Eddie pushes the clipboard aside and leans back against the counter. “I thought old dogs like you worked for table scraps,” he grins. “Really, I thought you were great. When’d you learn to dance like that?”

“I know, I know,” Richie winces. “Last time you saw me I was about as graceful as a moose in a phonebooth.”

“On roller skates,” adds Eddie, kicking a foot. “I guess it helps that you finished growing up.”

“I did no such thing!” To prove it, Richie sticks out his tongue.

Eddie does him one better and blows a raspberry. Buttercup meows, unsure what sort of behavior this signal warrants. “Oh, right,” Eddie says, turning to shoo her the rest of the way into her crate.

“So, you and Buttercup, eh?”

“She’s Ma’s, actually. All the trained animals are,” Eddie clarifies as he checks that the crate is secure for travel. “I’m just filling in, in a pinch.”

“Ah,” says Richie. That makes more sense. “Yeah, I guess I always figured you didn’t want to do this show biz stuff...”

When Eddie turns back to him, he finally looks as troubled as Richie would have expected upon their reunion. His brow wobbles as he searches for the words. Probably colorful ones that allude to unseemly body parts Richie resembles, or at the very least rhyme with ‘perk off’.

“Richie, I’m sorry,” Eddie finally bursts out.

Richie blinks. _“You’re_ sorry? _I’m_ sorry!”

“I know you must hate me for giving up, but I couldn’t do it! I was only seventeen, so my mother had to be involved and being with her was killing me, and I was _so close_ to breaking away, I couldn't-”

“Oh, Jesus.” Richie rubs his forehead.

 _Of course._ He would have been managed by Mrs. K. She would have a contractual way to keep him under her thumb and follow them to fame. While Richie was living his wildest dream, the television offer was just an extension of Eddie’s sentence.

“I didn’t realize- I thought you hated _me_ for making the show. Like it was supposed to be our special thing and I-”

The sad smile on Eddie’s face stops him in his tracks.

“No, never. You always wanted to go be a star, Richie. I didn’t. I just...” Eddie trails off with a sigh and a shrug. “We were just kids.”

“Yeah,” Richie agrees. Looking at Eddie now with his sharpened features and lived-in, self cultivated sense of style, the difference is clear. This isn’t the wide eyed Mama’s boy he knew anymore. “Maybe things turned out for the best?” Richie ventures.

Eddie allows it, smile warming to a glow. “I’m happy now. What about you?”

“Oh! Absolutely!” Speaking of kids, Richie digs into his pocket for his wallet. “I really knocked it outta the park, I’ll tell ya.” He flips it open to the picture cased in the middle, a pop of rainbow set in black leather.

“You have a little girl!” Eddie realizes, leaning in for a look. “Oh my gosh.”

“June,” Richie beams. “She’s six. She woulda loooved to be here to meet Buttercup, but I try to keep her off commercial sets. Buncha vultures.”

“She’s adorable. Looks just like you as a kid.”

“The hair and the glasses, right?”

Eddie hums. “And the over the top sense of style.”

“Yeah, aaaall those necklaces,” Richie chuckles, folding his wallet again. “She’s been on an arts and crafts kick for exactly as long as it’s been safe to trust her with a choking hazard. I’ve got about six matching friendship bracelets on, as we speak,” he reveals, pulling at his tux cuff so Eddie can see.

“Fish?” Eddie reads off of one of them.

“Juna Fish.”

Eddie crosses his arms and valiantly attempts to bite back a laugh. “Of course. How silly of me, _Eddie Spaghetti,_ not to recognize a Richie Tozier original.”

“You got any kids?” Richie asks back.

“Sixty-four of them.”

Richie whistles. “Lotta ladies going for that tall-blond-and-handsome trifecta these days!”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “I’m a high school teacher out in Commack.”

“Commack!? I’m in Huntington.”

“That’s a good district.”

You could knock Richie over with a feather, and really- a hummingbird’s would do, you wouldn’t even need to spring for ostrich. After _all this time,_ Eddie had ended up in New York, like him. How long have they been just a few miles apart, on the verge of a chance meeting like this?

“Heck, Eddie! I’ve been going to the movies practically in your backyard, for years!”

Eddie grins. “You should have told me so I could charge admission. I’d make a fortune off you in popcorn alone.”

“This is...!” Richie doesn’t know what! He reels, trying to pick just one question at a time. “C’mon, what subject? English?”

That’d be a good fit. Eddie was always a sucker for a poem or a rhyme, and nearly as quick with a turn of phrase as Richie. That's why they had such a relentless back and forth.

“Drama,” Eddie says, with relish.

“Ah, I was close! Brainwashing kids with good ol’ Billy The Bard, either way.”

Eddie chuckles. “Don’t worry, I round them out with plenty of Neil Simon and _Who’s On First,_ too,” he assures Richie.

“Better watch my back! It sounds like you're training up my competition.”

Eddie fixes him with a x-raying look that medical science could harness to kick it’s nasty radiology habit. “Believe me,” he says. “There’s only ever been one Richie Tozier. I’ve missed him.”

Sincerity like that scares off Richie’s command of language for a minute, but he comes back roaring at the notion that this feeling burning in his chest goes both ways. “Well, Spaghetti Man! If you miss the old glory days, I’ve got a script you could look at,” he tells him. “It’s already got some studio interest! It’s just that finding a good fit for the straight man has been a total bust.”

Without warning, Eddie’s expression goes flat. “Richie...”

“Right, you’ve already got a job,” Richie reminds himself. “But there’s no rush, ya know!”

That’s not quite true, in the moment. The union guys on set are already barking about getting load-out going. Wardrobe is waiting to whisk his tux off to be dry cleaned. Traffic out of the city will be murder if they don’t take off soon.

Still, Eddie hesitates. He pats the top of Buttercup's crate, sticks his hands in his pockets and looks all around the studio as it dismantles. “Please don’t ask me to work with you,” he says quietly. “I never wanted to be in the position of telling you no.”

Thanks to Richie’s muscle memory of how to always be the most upbeat guy in the room, his head starts nodding without him. “Cool. Yeah, no. I get it.”

Nina is trying to get his attention, now. _Something something_ hairspray... Give him a minute! Eddie is holding out his arms for a hug! 

“It was great to see you, Richie.”

“C’mere you!” Richie growls, accepting the offer in the hardy tradition of bears the world 'round. He groans as he wraps Eddie in his arms and rocks them so soundly he’s in danger of knocking Eddie off his feet. “Bet I can still pick you up!” he threatens.

“No bet,” Eddie laughs. “Who’s gonna pick us both up off the floor if you can’t?”

“Buttercup? The world’s first feline scratch-ion hero! The Ter-meow-nator!”

Eddie gives him a punishing squeeze. “I take it back. I don’t miss you at all,” he sighs. He gives Richie’s cheek a kiss before he pulls away.

“Hey!”

Richie whirls around. _“-Is for horses._ What can I do ya for, Nina?”

“Don’t wash your hair before you come in tomorrow,” she orders as she packs up her supplies for the night. “It’ll be better to style.”

“Roger that!”  
  


  
-

Everybody’s in the kitchen when Richie gets home. Coming in the door, he nearly runs over his mother as she flits back and forth gathering ingredients for dinner.

“Woah, Mama!”

“Woah, yourself!”

June clambers to kneel in her seat at the table in anticipation. “Daddy!”

“Hiya Juna Fish,” he says, dropping a kiss on the top of her head. “You helping Grammy cook?”

As fast as she had sprung up, June deflates. “Mhnnngmm,” she grumbles.

Mags pauses to give her a consoling pat. “She’s having a tough time with her homework or she would be.”

“Aww, okay. I got it.” Richie bends down to his daughter again and whispers in her ear. “June, why don’t you take a little break to shake your sillies out, and then I’ll help you.”

“Yeah,” June agrees, and slides out of her seat in search of a few minutes rambunction.

Richie pushes the empty chair back in so it’s not in his mother’s way, then proceeds to shadow her so obnoxiously that he is, instead.

“Can I get that for you?” he asks as she tiptoes to pull a stock pot down.

“I got it, I got it,” she laughs. “How was work?”

“Kinda weird!”

Mags throws a dubious look over her shoulder. “Must’ve been, the way you’re bouncing around.”

Yeah, Richie feels like he’s still burning off extra energy after his unexpected encounter, all right.

“You will never guess who I ran into, Mags.”

“You’re finally gonna set me up with Dick Van Dyke?”

“Wow,” Richie gasps. “Got it in one... Can you bend spoons, too, or is it just mind reading?”

Mags chuckles. “Who?”

“Eddie Kaspbrak.”

The stock pot slips from his mother’s hands just a bit prematurely and rattles into the sink like a drum sting. “Oh my goodness!”

“I know, right? Blast from the past!”

Mags runs the tap and then turns back to Richie while the pot fills. “Well, how was he?”

At that, Richie starts bouncing on the balls of his feet again. “Amazing! He’s still amazing. And he’s local! And he looks like an ad for shampoo made from diamonds- like, dazzling. And he was just there to handle the trained cat!”

“Wow! So when’s he coming over?”

“I don’t know.” Richie stops. “Wh- why _didn’t_ I ask him to come by?” he wonders at himself.

Because he blindsided Eddie with a professional offer before a personal one? Oops.

In his defense, Richie hasn’t had much of a social life since becoming a dad. He’s got buddies in the biz he’s always happy to see when they pop up on set, but they’re not hitting the bar after, or taking boy’s weekends to Atlantic City, or anything. His free time is for helping June with shoebox dioramas, and attending teddy bear tribunals, and giving her a snuggle and some Pepto when she has a tummy ache. Now that it’s occurring to Richie as the conventional option for re establishing friendship, though, he’d love to have Eddie over for dinner! Mags always adored him. And he’s a teacher, so he’s gotta be decent with kids, right?

“I’ll ask when I see him tomorrow,” Richie decides.

“Tell him I apologize for your lack of hospitality and I would love to see him,” Mags chuckles.

With Richie’s hermetic instincts corrected, they get back on track. Mags has been hankering for some lasagna, but her hands aren’t what they once were, with her arthritis. Richie takes the cheese grating and veggie chopping over to the kitchen table, where he can keep an eye on June’s homework. 

Math was a walk in the park for her, but Writing is a little more time consuming. The task is matching words to their antonyms, but being Richie’s child, June is less than impressed with the provided word bank. Sad, Happy. Clean, dirty. Small, big. What about delighted? Disgusting!? _Humongous!!_ To get it out of her system, Richie helps her keep her own list on a second sheet of paper, promising that they’ll use it to write a story later. 

“I’ll have to keep an eye out for a book of mad-libs for ya,” he tells her. “Then you can use all the five dollar words you like!”

June copies out another lackluster adjective with a weary sigh. “I wish I got more word allowance _now._ This is boring.”

“Enjoy the easy stuff while it lasts, kid. You’ll be in grad school, pulling all-nighters on your magnum opus before you know it.”

Predictably, she looks up from her work at the sprinkling of a juicy new term. “What’s that?”

“It’s Latin for ‘great work’. The _best_ one you got in ya,” Richie explains. “Like you might say- Ernie’s magnum opus is ‘Rubber Duckie, You’re the One’, or- Grammy, this lasagna is gonna be your _magnum opus!”_

Mags laughs as she layers pasta into a casserole dish. “Gee, no pressure.”

“Hmm.” June scrunches her face in thought. “My dad’s magnum opus iiiiis... One of your cartoons? I can’t pick!”

“You think a cartoon’s the best thing I ever made!?” Specks of mozzarella fly as Richie slaps a scandalized hand to his chest.

“No?”

Richie spiders his hand over to June for a tickle. “I can’t believe _yoooou_ don’t know!”

“You’re all cheesy!” she squeals as she squirms. 

“You bet!”

Oh, he loves that giggle. Even her littlest peep is better than any track Richie could ever put down. It’s well worth the dirty look he gets from Mags for pretending to chuck a handful of cheese.

“Save _some_ for dinner,” she tsks.

Before they can get too frisky with her ingredients, she comes over with the tray so they can smother it.

  
  
-  
  
  


Guess Eddie really was filling in at the last minute- there’s no sign of him on set the next day. Between takes Buttercup perches on the shoulder of Sonia Kaspbrak, who barely acknowledges Richie, let alone recognizes him. She signals her cat through the motions joylessly, like she used to handle Eddie, once upon a time. 

_Sit._

_Come here._

_Be quiet._

It’s strange to see it now with adult eyes. When they were kids doing their show, it was all an adventure! They were solving on-air mysteries and Mrs. K was another spooky shadow, lending atmosphere. Another villain they had to outwit to have their fun! Now it’s just sad. It’s plain to see Sonia does it for love of control, not pride in Buttercup, or a sense of accomplishment. When the producer tries to tell her when and what stations the commercial will eventually air, she snaps that she doesn’t even watch TV.

Well, Richie can try and make an effort, anyway. When they finish up with him he towels off his sweaty sheen, throws on a robe, and marches right over to Buttercup’s vanity.

“Hey, Mrs. K! I knew talent ran in the family, but I didn't realize that was on _four_ legs!”

Sonia freezes in the midst of brushing Buttercup. “I’m sorry?”

Richie sticks a hand out. “It’s crazy seeing you again. Richie Tozier? Me and your son used to have that little radio show that got picked up by WBZ, remember that?”

“Right. Richard.” Sonia shakes his hand like she just saw someone sneeze and then use the doorknob just before her.

“I was surprised to see Eddie yesterday!” Richie barrels on. “I didn’t know you folks were still in the business at all-”

“Eddie was _only_ here because Buttercup’s brother had blood in his urine. I needed to take him to the doctor.”

Richie blinks. “Yeaaah, I hope the little guy’s all right. Listen, uh- yesterday I got so caught up asking Eddie about a script we could do, I didn’t think to get his number-”

The mother of Eddie’s scowl appears on Sonia’s already grim face. “He doesn’t do that sort of work anymore,” she says. “It’s for the best.”

“Yeah, I know he’s got his teaching job-”

Sonia lowers her voice. “And it’s hard enough to keep that, with a _liability_ like his.”

Richie snorts. “What?” 

There’s nothing a sweetheart like Eddie could do that he might not have done himself, hopped up at some sleazy club in his early career. For Pete’s sake, there was milk in Richie’s fridge older than his relationship with June’s mom when he knocked her up!

Sonia sticks up her patronizing little Kaspbrak nose, but it’s not nearly as charming as when Eddie does it. “You should be glad he didn’t follow you into the public eye,” she says. “Or people might have assumed you two were _that way_ together...”

The same sudden sensation Richie gets when turning on the TV late at night to discover June left the volume cranked up lances through his brain. Message received! He clears his throat, but all he can come up with is _“Oh.”_

With that, Sonia turns her attention back to Buttercup like she’s already forgotten Richie’s existence. He, on the other hand, mulls over their conversation for days.

It’s not that he’s surprised Eddie would be gay, or that he feels like he was somehow wronged for not knowing. They were kids! Kids are impulsive little shapeshifters with all sorts of half baked anxieties! Richie ran up the basement stairs for fear of murder clowns until he was in his twenties, and you can bet he never admitted that to anyone, either. It’s okay Eddie never told him. Maybe _he_ didn’t even know at the time. Richie’s not really sure how anyone _really_ knows. Everyone’s a little bit in between, aren't they? Just a matter of preference, and really, it's a slim difference. We’re all made of star stuff, man! Not that Richie’s ever gone as far as to buy a guy a drink or anything, but it seems pretty self evident that there are attractive people men and women alike love to ogle, or else supermodels wouldn’t exist!

It’s just sad to think that Eddie could have let it keep him from opportunities he might otherwise have wanted to follow. Whatever Sonia thinks, they _could_ have done the show together- Richie wouldn’t have let anyone change his mind about his best friend. They could have been knocking ‘em dead, all this time. That’s the rub of it, for Richie, really. Eddie _deserves_ to be adored by the masses. Hopefully those students of his know what a treat they’ve got.

At some point in the midst of wishing he had another chance to clear the air with Eddie, it occurs to Richie that he knows exactly where to find him. He just has to catch him at the high school! The next weekday that he has an open afternoon, he swings through Commack right around the time the buses are lining up for the end of the school day. It’s a little tricky to find parking while there are so many parents making pick ups, but it’s easy to guess where they’d stick a drama teacher when the building has just one section built tall enough to house an auditorium. He wades through a sea of kids at their lockers in the neighboring hall, and sure enough, one of the classroom doors is plastered in yellow Playbills. 

When he pushes open the door, he finds a sizable room stacked full of recombinable platforms, lined with black curtains, and mirrors and ballet barres. At the far end of the room, Eddie sits at a half prop table/half desk, stapling and folding a stack of photocopies. Since kids probably come in and out of here all the time, he doesn’t look up until Richie speaks.

“Hey Teach!”

Eddie’s surprise melts into a smile. “Richie!” 

“This is a better space than some of the clubs I’ve played,” Richie says, whipping off his sunglasses and spinning around to take in the 360. “Suh-lick! And to think, _our_ high school drama club met in the shabby ol' library.”

“It’s a good program,” Eddie shrugs, but he seems proud. He looks around at the room with a smile too, before fully absorbing that Richie doesn’t belong in it. “What are you doing here?”

“Well?” Richie scratches the back of his neck. “I wanted to apologize again.”

Eddie shakes his head kindly and continues jogging papers to even them out for stapling. “You didn’t have to, the first time.”

“I did! I do!” Richie insists. “I didn’t realize the position I put you in, is the thing. And then I didn’t know to tell you that, you know, it doesn’t matter. I still wanna be your friend- or, become friends again, I know it’s been a long time. And Mags says I’m a caveman for not inviting you to dinner, by the way. She’d love to see you! But I didn’t think to get your number so I could call, and your mom was... _not_ the kind of forthcoming I was expecting.”

Eddie looks confused, hand hovering over the stapler. “I guess I didn’t think you’d have much interest in reconnecting.”

“‘Cause you’re gay?”

The stapler chonks down, harder than it had just a moment before. Shocked by his own slip, Eddie pulls back from the activity entirely. “Well!” he sputters. “Yes, but that’s beside the point... I figured you have your own busy life, these days.”

Richie waves a hand. “Not too busy to have you over, sometime. What are you doing this week?”

“Tech,” Eddie says, as all encompassingly as any one word can say a thing. “And then we’ve got performances all weekend.”

Finally, Richie actually reads the stack of programs Eddie is folding, featuring the silhouette of a rabbit. “Aw, your kids are doing _Harvey?”_

“I know it’s a little dinky, but we’re doing _Into The Woods_ in the spring. It's a good program, but my budget was never going to cover costumes for _two_ period pieces,” Eddie says wearily. 

“Wow!” It sounds like a small miracle that he squeezed out some time to pitch in with the commercial the other day, to Richie. “Hey, did ya hear the one about the musical director who got caught in a lightning storm? He woulda been killed if he wasn’t such a poor conductor!”

“Just awful,” Eddie laughs.

Richie jolts his arms like he’s been electrified. “I’m _shocked_ you feel that way."

The door opens behind him then, and a troupe of teens wearing all black rush in. They dump their backpacks on the floor and the tallest, lankiest girl checks her watch with fierce determination.

“Keys!” Eddie calls to her, unhooking some from his belt loop. “You can open up the dressing rooms.”

“I’ll get out of your hair in a minute,” Richie promises. “But would it be okay if I came to see your show?” he asks. “I love _Harvey_ and June’s just the right age.”

“Oh! Uhm, of course.” Eddie stands up to pass off the keys. “I can give you tickets now, if you like. I have the cash box around here somewhere...”

While he pokes around his pile of play related items that have yet to make their way to the theater, Richie gets out his wallet. Not gonna miss his chance to give Eddie his card while he’s at it this time.

“Saturday night?”

“Sure.” Eddie files through for the right date. “Kids under ten are free,” he says, voiding the price on one with a red marker K. “Do you need two more for you and your wife?”

Richie snorts. “Ah, June’s mom is not in the picture, actually. But I’ll ask Mags if she wants to come. Either way, box office bucks for your program, right?”

Eddie looks up at him like Richie just trotted in the pet pony he never got as a child- if Eddie hadn’t been so nervous it’d bite off his fingers, anyway. He trades Richie for the tickets with a smile. “Thank you,” he says. “And I’ll think about a night we can do dinner!”

Another one of his students starts milling around nearby, waiting for his chance to ask a question. Better scram.

 _“Mahhhvelous._ Break a leg!” Richie says, putting on his sunglasses again as he backs away.

“You first,” Eddie smirks back.

  
  
-  
  
  


As Richie had hoped, June is in the _Harvey_ sweet spot. She sits in the auditorium chair that barely holds open for her tiny little body, kicking her mary-janes, tantalized by the tale of a man and his pooka best friend- a six foot tall, invisible rabbit.

Veta, the man’s concerned sister, is clearly one of Eddie’s stars. She plays the part with palpable, perfectly comedic distress, boohooing that the mental institution should not to medicate Elwood after all.

“You don't know what you want!” says the family’s lawyer. “You didn't want that rabbit either!”

After a long day of indignities and being wrongfully committed in her brother’s stead, Veta’s frustration finally transforms into clarity. These uptight, overstuffed lab coats are the real trouble, not her sweet natured brother. She rounds on them all.

“Well what's wrong with Harvey? If Elwood and Myrtle Mae and I want to live with Harvey, what’s it to you? You don't have to come around. It's _our_ house!”

There’s nothing quite so powerful a child’s sense of injustice, or her desire for a talking animal friend- so of course June eats it right up. It doesn’t matter how visible the fishing line is that pulls the door open for Harvey’s curtain call. In that moment he’s _real,_ and she _will_ meet him or die trying.  
  
“Hmm! We’ll have to see,” says Mags. She trails along while June pulls Richie by both hands.

They file out of the auditorium to the big entry hall of the school itself, where proud parents are eager either to find a bathroom or heap their praise directly onto their kids. The crowd is a little crushing for a person who’s under four feet tall, so June hugs tight around Richie’s waist, allowing him to bulldoze their path.

“I don’t remember putting on this belt when I got dressed.”

“Nice belt, dad!”

“That’s something you could get me for Christmas. _Hint.”_

June giggles.

“I’ll take you shopping soon,” Mags says.

“You’ll take Daddy shopping for me too, right Grammy?”

“Oh, of course.”

“Aw, man! Grammy makes me sit in the backseat when she drives,” Richie teases. Then he spots a particular blond head making its way to the gaggle of actors. “Ooo, there he is!”

“Harvey!?” June wriggles in excitement.

Richie unwinds her from around himself so he can better steer her in between two clusters of people. “My buddy Eddie. He was my best friend in the whole world when I was your age.”

It looks like Veta’s parents are shaking his hand at the moment. The girl’s stage makeup crow’s feet perfectly match her mother's. After she and Mr. Veta’s Dad peel away, Mags swoops in to take their place.

“Hello, Eddie dear. What a wonderful show!”

Eddie does a double take. “Mrs. Tozier!”

“Please, it’s Mags now,” she chuckles at him. “Seeing you all grown up makes me feel old enough!” As though no time has passed, she pats his cheeks like she used to, long ago. “Look at your handsome face!”

“Aww. Thank you.” Eddie catches Richie’s eye over her shoulder, as flustered by the attention now as he was way back when. This sort of display used to gross Richie out, but now he’s grateful someone was always sweet to Eddie when his own mother couldn’t be.

“Hey Spaghetti Man!”

“Thanks for coming, Richie,” Eddie grins. He makes a hip-level wave to June, too.

“Eddie, prepare yourself for the unparalleled honor of meeting my daughter June Tallulah Tozier the First, esquire, PhD, etcetera...”

“Daaaad!” June snickers at the fanfare.

Eddie holds out a hand. “I’m just plain old Eddie. It’s nice to meet you, June.”

“Hello!” she beams back, shaking with her whole arm.

“Did you like the show?”

“Eddie directed it!” Richie reminds her.

June’s eyes go wide. She knows enough about show biz to know that directors have connections. “Harvey was my favorite,” she tells Eddie. “He was really capti- cap- Dad?” She looks over her shoulder. “What's that word?”

“Captivating?”

 _“Captivating,”_ she repeats, laying it on thick. Richie’s girl all the way through.

“I’ll tell him you said that,” Eddie smiles. “He’ll be thrilled.”

Richie gives him a wink that only makes him grin harder. “Is Harvey still here?” he asks Eddie, with a subtle turn of the head.

Eddie reads him perfectly. “Oh, I’m sorry, Harvey already went home for dinner,” he says in shared disappointment. “You just missed him.”

June swivels around to look up at Richie. “Aww, Daddy!”

“Hmm,” Richie rubs his chin. “Why don’t we all have dinner together another night? Eddie can bring Harvey with him.”

“I’d be glad to.”

“Hear that?” Mags gives June’s head a pet. “We’ll have to think up something special to make.”

“Yeah!”

After all the adults agree and exchange the boring information adults exchange to make plans happen, they say goodnight and head home. By the time they’re toothbrushed and jimjammed, it’s pretty late for June. She doesn’t ask for Richie to read anything, just that he tucks her in with her biggest bunny doll, a scraggly pink thing named Skippy. She rubs the satin innards of its ear while he pulls up the blankets, blinking heavily, but still asking questions. She confessed in the car that she knew Harvey the rabbit wasn’t _really_ real in her real life, but that leaves several other loose ends. What about pookas in general? _Smaller_ invisible rabbits?

“But in the play? In _Elwood’s_ real life?” she asks.

“Do you think so?”

“Yeah!”

Richie laughs. “I do too.”

“Do people really go to the hospital for seeing imaginary things, Daddy?”

Here, Richie does his best to tread a little less fatuously. “Maybe, if it makes them sad. People go to the doctor sometimes because their feelings are hurt, not just their bodies,” he tells her. “Did Elwood seem sad?”

“No. People just didn’t understand.”

“Right. I guess he was doing okay, then,” Richie concludes with a pat of the blankets.

June drags Skippy up over her, like a shield. “Did you ever go to a doctor because you were sad?”

“Mhmm.” Richie takes a seat at the edge of the bed. He tweaks Skippy’s ear out of June’s face. No hiding. Nothing to be afraid of. “Grammy has, too,” he tells her. “Almost every adult I know needs a check up, sometimes. Then they get better.”

“What about my teacher?”

“Maybe!”

June yawns. “What about Eddie?”

Richie shrugs. “Maybe him, too.”

“Huh.” Sleepy as she is, June knows that’s the answer she’ll keep getting no matter who she lists, so she conserves her energy for one last line of inquiry. “If Eddie’s your best friend how come I never saw him before?”

That one’s tough. How long do ya got, kid?

“Well, we grew up together- like you and Melissa! But Eddie decided he didn’t want to do TV like I do,” Richie explains. “Since then, we’ve been really busy and didn’t see each other.”

“Is he kinda like your Harvey?”

Richie laughs. “Eh, he’s definitely really real.”

June squeezes Skippy tight. “If you want to be friends and you’re not sad, then everyone else should mind their own business,” she reminds him. When she blinks again, her eyes barely open.

“You’re so smart, Fishie.” He leans to kiss June’s head, and Skippy too. “Love you.”

“G’night Daddy.”

“Goodnight moon, goodnight room, goodnight June...”

-

The house that Richie grew up in had a dine-in kitchen with a big oval table, heavy chairs, and a collection of curtains that Mags changed out to coordinate with the season. It was where Went read the paper in the morning while Richie and his sister Rhonda squabbled over breakfast. It was where Mags could be found when they came back from school, clipping coupons, or set up with her sewing machine. Richie would make the underside of the table his clubhouse when the weather was bad, and skip sweeping beneath it when the weather was beautiful and he just wanted to get his chores done quicker.

When Kimberly split, Richie’s city apartment didn’t have a room like that. The living/dining room was just a showpiece, since he was strictly a Going Out person before June was born. He couldn’t imagine a family there. Maybe that was why Kim couldn’t envision being part of one either.

Mags was having a hard time going it alone too, so Richie bought this place in the 'burbs and moved her into the apartment upstairs. She made cow print curtains for the kitchen and Richie made the corny jokes she’d been missing since Went had died. He got a big oval table so Rhonda and her brood could visit for the holidays, and by the time June got big enough to sit up at it, they were all home again.

“Oh, I remember these!”

“I’ll bet you do,” laughs Mags.

Eddie lights up when Richie brings the old tea and sugar jars over to the table for dessert. He gives the sunflower printed on the side a reverent touch. “Is your cookie jar still purely ceremonial?” 

“You boys never let a batch make it that far,” says Mags. She starts slicing and dishing the cake, so that it may meet the same eager fate.

Richie carries the cookie jar over to Eddie with a grin. “You wanna try your luck? No peeking!”

“Now, that makes me nervous,” Eddie says, with a pinch of his brow. “Cobwebs for sure.” 

“Nope,” June snickers, delighted to be in the know. 

Eddie pushes back his sleeve with a worried glance to her. “Something messy?” 

June takes a purposefully huge bite of her cake. _Not telling!_

Richie watches Eddie’s face as he sticks his hand in and feels what's inside. His squirmy frown turns into a laugh as the contents tink and clatter against each other.

“...Definitely glass. Maybe spice bottles? Christmas ornaments?” he guesses.

“You’re getting warm,” June hums.

“A nutcracker, nuts?”

“Colder.”

Eddie grins. He already knew that. He goes off the rails just to make her laugh. “Swizzle sticks! Binoculars! Light bulbs! Egg cups!”

June fakes a shiver. “You’re fuh-reeeezing!”

After one more stir Eddie pulls out his hand and looks at the shimmering contents. “Oh! Nail polish!”

Richie bounces his eyebrows. “Highly supervised substance, in this household.”

“I’m only allowed to paint nails, and only sitting at a table,” June confirms with a well behaved nod.

“You’re great at stayin' on the nails,” Richie praises. “We’re still getting better at remembering to close the cap on things, right June?”

“Mhmm!”

Of course that’s not the end of that, now that he’s dangled the literal and proverbial cookie jar in front of his daughter. Aaaany minute now.

June lets Richie get three quarters of the way through his slice of cake before the inevitable-

“Daddy?”

“Junie?”

“After dessert... Do you think I could paint my nails to show Eddie?”

Mags tilts towards Eddie conspiratorially. “The show off apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, huh?”

He smiles back at her fondly. “It’s a good thing it’s a very nice tree.”

“Aww.” Richie’s so happy to have Eddie back in their shade, it’s a shame he has to be the party pooper. “Sorry Juna Fish, but it’s gonna be bedtime soon,” he points out. “It won’t have time to dry right.”

June frowns. “Oh.”

Eddie puts down his fork with a prim little _ahem._ “You know, I’ve never had my nails painted,” he says, matter of fact. He gives Richie a tempting look.

“Dad!” 

“Hmm!” Richie puts his chin in his hand and flutters his lashes. “When’s your bedtime, Eddie?”

“Late enough,” he chuckles.

So, once the table is cleared, they take out the cookie jar again and line up all the little bottles in a row. The collection is an impressive array that spans the rainbow, but June has a preferred group Eddie should select from, of course. He goes whole hog and lets her do them all, alternating every finger. He’s so patient, it reminds Richie of how they used to sit across from each other like this so Richie could show him a mind numbing parade of card tricks. And like Richie had hoped, Eddie’s perfectly comfortable conversing with a six year old. He makes jokes June can understand, and asks her opinion, and knows how to encourage her, and really, it’s a shame he never had any siblings so he could at least be an uncle.

“Daddy says if I keep combing my own hair everyday I can grow it long as I want, like a mermaid.”

“That sounds like a pretty good deal. And Richie- do _you_ comb your own hair everyday?” Eddie teases.

“Well! Sometimes I’m on set and they wanna do it for you,” Richie says, a little defensive.

Eddie clucks his tongue and shakes his head with June. “So he’s not allowed to have mermaid hair, I guess. What a shame.”

“What a shame,” June repeats, trying to match his tone but breaking off into giggles. “Hey Eddie! You know what? And don’t say chicken butt.”

“I hold the trademark on that,” Richie warns.

Eddie rolls his eyes, grinning wide as a barn door with cheeks just as red. “What, June?”

“Grammy showed me pictures where Dad had it really long! All the way to his shoulders!”

Mags perks up. “I should find the photo album for you to see, dear,” she says, and slips away from the table.

Eddie gives Richie an appraising look over June’s head, clearly trying to imagine it. “Are we absolutely sure your dad’s not a mermaid?”

“I wish!”

“Your wildest dream come true,” Richie snorts. “If June had her way, we’d live in _The Little Mermaid.”_

“Ahh, yes. My students love it,” Eddie says, understandingly as any adult who spends a majority of their time with the youth. “The score is nice, from what I’ve heard. _And heard, and heard...”_

As the evening wears on towards its end, Richie’s been hoping for a reason to get together another time, and well, June _has_ been dying to go back! He’s not above using her cuteness for social pressure.

“You wanna come see it with us?”

June gasps. _“Pleeease!”_

“C’mooon fancy fingers!” Richie waggles his magically at Eddie. “We could go out for dinner, make a night of it?”

Eddie looks between the two of them with that same content-in-the-shade fondness as before. “All right. Because you said ‘please’.”

After that, it’s no surprise that June has warmed up enough to give Eddie a goodnight hug, unprovoked. He thanks her for his wet nails by doing his best not to ruin her shirt with them.

“I’m gonna tuck both us ladies in for the night,” Mags says. She pats Eddie’s cheek. “Thank you for coming, dear.”

“Thank you for having me, Mags.”

“Always a pleasure. Come back soon!”

When she and June disappear down the hall, Eddie turns back to Richie a little glassy eyed. He can’t quite wipe it away casually with his hands still drying.

“They’re really great,” he sniffs.

"Aww, they’re crazy about you, too. What can I say? They’re an excellent judge of character from spending so much time around me,” Richie claims with a little bow.

“That must be it,” Eddie laughs, breaking through a watery edge in his voice. He clears his throat and gives the album Mags brought back a tap. “Come on and show me your mermaid hair so I’m not the only one who’s embarrassed.”

“Oh boy, just remember, you asked for it!” Richie scoops the book up and stands. “ _Allons, mon ami.”_

They move to the living room and page through _The Tozier Family 1949-1974_ on the couch. The first half of it Eddie knows well enough. He can name Rhonda’s cats, the beaches, and the schools. He remembers what he gave Richie for some of the birthdays, and which elbow sticking into the frame is his own. There are photos of the two of them at the radio station clipped from the newspaper, then photos of only Richie, striking out on his own. His glasses disappear first, then he starts filling out into manliness and experimenting with facial hair.

“And here we go,” Richie shakes his head. “My psychedelic phase. Remind me to burn this.”

He tries to flip past it quickly, but Eddie sticks his hand in the middle and holds the page open.

“Wow. June wasn’t kidding.”

There he is. Twenty-three year old Richie, staring up at them from the past, with too much curl and turquoise, looking like the second coming of Barry Gibb.

Richie shakes a fist. “Button your shirt, hippie,” he croaks in a crotchety voice.

“You look cool! You would’ve thought I was such a bore,” Eddie laughs.

“Nahhh,” Richie elbows him. “That’s the formula, right? I bring out the bad boy in you, you bring out the goody two shoes in me? Swip swap!”

Eddie points a purple polished finger at the picture just below. An awards ceremony with the first trophy Richie ever got for TV. “I don’t know... You cleaned up nice, even without my influence.”

“That’s a velvet suit. And the fade on this picture loses what a truly _godawful_ shade of brown it was.”

“I take it back!”

Richie can almost feel it now, itching at him. He was so nervous, and so far from home. This was one of those make or break moments where he had told himself if he didn’t pull it off, didn’t win, it would all finally be revealed as a mistake. He’d risen to the level of his incompetence. He didn’t have what it took.

Not on his own.

“You know- or, I guess you’d never know, because it wasn’t televised,” Richie says, “But I thanked you in that acceptance.”

Eddie shakes his head. “If I’d’ve known,” he says, wistful.

“You shoulda at least hit me up for free drinks at the event!”

"At least.'

They get through the rest of the album and then Eddie has nothing to occupy his hands. He looks down at them and chuckles to himself. Sky blue, sparkly orange, persimmon (Richie’s personal favorite), and pearly purple.

“I’m afraid I can’t go to work like this,” he says realistically.

Richie nods and pushes up off the couch. “Yeah that color is so last season. Teenage girls are brutally judgmental. But I have remover in the bathroom, I gotcha.”

He rounds up the bottle and a bag of cotton balls, and then just starts removin’. Force of habit. He takes Eddie’s hands before he realizing that Eddie is not an accident prone little girl, but a grown man who is quite practiced at not spilling bottles. That he’s a grown man who very much likes holding hands with other grown men, without pretense. Does he think this is a pretense? Richie can’t risk glancing up at him to figure that out. What if they made meaningful eye contact? _What if-_

“So what’s the deal with your mom?”

Haha! Good one, Richie! Veer in the totally opposite direction. By the time the thought police catch you you’ll be across the Couldn’t Be Mistaken For A Come On County line!

“Honestly, my mother and I don’t have much to do with each other besides being emergency contacts,” Eddie says. He doesn’t sound particularly disappointed about that. “She doesn’t approve of my ‘way of life’ and I’m not interested in hearing it.”

How appropriate that Richie is on the middle finger. “Sorry ‘bout that,” he frowns.

“Of course, her definition of an emergency is looser than mine,” Eddie says, more to himself than to Richie.

Still, he’s familiar. _“Ohh_ yeah. They broke the whackjob mold when they made your mom," Richie cracks.

Eddie laughs agreement. “No one else would have a reason to help her on set the other day, but I know the cashflow keeps her from showing up with a suitcase.”

“Playing the long game,” Richie observes. “Good for you. If she isn’t holding up her end of the loving the crap out of you bargain, don’t let ‘er in.” He gives Eddie’s whole arm a proud jostle.

Eddie absorbs it with a gentle smile. “Right.”

The moment is getting a little sentimental, so Richie ducks his head. Oo, lookie! Eddie has an interesting ring on. Richie gives it a fiddle. “Get that from a gumball machine?” he jokes.

Eddie doesn’t laugh, though he does take a breath that makes Richie look up at him again.

“Can I ask about June’s mother?”

A cold feeling creeps across Richie’s scalp. “Ah.”

“You don’t have to tell me. I just wouldn’t want to assume something and say the wrong thing.”

Of course Eddie would be curious. They’ve spent the night been filling in so many other details of their lives apart, and there’s a pretty notable blank there.

“No, no, that’s fair.” Richie gets a better hold of Eddie’s hand so he can do his pinky without ripping it off. “Uhh...”

No, he needs a new cotton ball first, so he can focus on the job at hand! He makes a big show of selecting just the right one, squeezing it like a fruit and rattling it next to his ear.

“Right! So, Kimberly. We were never married. Barely dating. I was on the wrong side of thirty, losing speed, _and_ I just lost my dad. She was a wild twenty-something with all her best party days ahead of her,” Richie rattles off like sports stats. He scrubs off Eddie’s polish just as rapidly, coming away an angry red. “It was a wake up call, you know? By the time June was born, I’d quit all the fun stuff that got me and Kim together in the first place. Went 100% fuddy duddy wannabe daddy. But she couldn’t keep clean, didn’t want to. My fault for cornering her into all of it, really. She walked out and wound up bartending on a cruise line, last I heard.”

Eddie’s pinky is clean as a whistle but his long fingers still lay across Richie’s palm. He gives Richie’s hand a soft squeeze. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

Richie switches to Eddie’s thumb and keeps going. “Yeah, well. I don’t care about me. We wouldn’t have worked out anyway, so I deserved to get dumped, but June didn’t.”

“Still,” Eddie pouts. "You've been through a lot."

When his thumb is clean, Richie doesn’t let go. They’re just friends holding hands now, in a comforting moment. It’s nice. And man oh man, is Richie getting curious how much life experience is behind that empathy.

“What about you? Any heartbreaks for the history books?”

One corner of Eddie’s mouth hooks up. “A handful. How far back should I go?” he asks.

Richie must have suddenly turned into a giraffe, the way he swallows and never seems to stop. Could he handle hearing about it if Eddie had a crush on Bill or Mike or any of their other school friends back in the day?

“What about right now?" Richie asks, diverting. "You seeing anyone?”

_Why are you asking? Why did you bring this up? You could have just gushed about your kid! You love gushing about your kid! You’re still holding hands!_

“Was my being available all weekend, any weekend of December not a dead give away?” Eddie laughs. Mercifully, he pulls away to switch hands.

Richie clears his throat and gets more remover for the cotton ball. “What a coupla has-beens, huh? If I didn’t have June’s tea parties I'd be _completely_ irrelevant.”

“Well, I dunno if _you're_ a ‘has-been’,” Eddie says. “I saw Richie Tozier in a pretty funny commercial with a cat the other day...”

"His mother must be so proud."

"Who's? The cat's?" Eddie smirks.

What a delight.

After they say goodnight, Richie keeps seeing echoes of Eddie’s twisty little smile. Behind his eyelids. On the ceiling. In the pillow. He stuffs his face into it and moans.

_“What the hell!”_

That quick, sharp smirk, a pin dropping from the heavens to burst Richie’s bubble, making a billion more pop up in its place. What was all that? Why is he trying to feel Eddie out? What does it mean that he never quite got his breath back after they touched? If it was so wonderful to be with Eddie again, to talk to him and laugh with him and hold his hand, how would it be to hold the rest of him? 

Does he want that?

Apparently, _Richie_ is the one who needs feeling out. Since he’s not getting any sleep, he tries to run a thought experiment. There is absolutely no harm in that.

 _Okay, big guy._ Imagine you’re in the living room again. You’ve already got your mitts on each other, sorta. That’s all right. Maybe just... slide a little closer. He smelled good didn’t he? Slip an arm around him and see if you can decide if that was his shampoo or his shaving cream or just _him._ That got his attention. He noticed you making your move. You’re leaning, he’s leaning, there’s a hand on your thigh, a hand in his hair...

Richie could kiss him. He’s kissed men for comedy purposes before. _Archie Flippin’ Bunker_ has kissed a man on the lips, for cryin’ out loud! 

Anyway! He’s kissing Eddie. Just like when they’re joking around, he’s always got a come back for Richie. They breath together and laugh and trade excited little _‘I never thought this would happen’s_ between teasing kisses. When Richie nips, Eddie nips back. When Richie presses deeper, Eddie wraps his arms around his neck. They fall into the couch, finally allowed to content themselves, each immersed in the other. 

God, it’s been a long time since Richie had someone who held him like that. Surrounding. Adoring. Loving. The least far fetched part of this little exercise is the supposed affection. However wary Richie is of the rest of it, Eddie is someone with whom, and to whom he can be tender.

 _If_ he wanted that.

That’s all the hypothetical Richie can handle tonight. He hugs himself tight and falls asleep.

  
  
-  
  
  


When the movie outing rolls around, Richie has managed to get something resembling a hold of himself. _Perhaps_ he would like to know what it’s like to kiss Eddie, but there’s no danger of that happening today with their sparkling little chaperone in tow. For dinner beforehand, he suggests the most oppressively fluorescent diner within the radius of the movie theater, and loads up on onion rings and pickle, for extra self imposed impediment. Crisis averted.

He and Eddie trade stories about work, and June does the coloring on the back of her kid’s menu, jabbering on about the oceans and the continents she’s learning, and how when they made maps today Antarctica was her favorite, because they got to use glitter. She still has some of it worked into the ruffles on her shirt and stuck in her auburn hair, where she must have combed it back while sticky with glue. She sort of matches the diner’s vinyl upholstery, actually.

“We had people in class who’d been to all the continents, but Antarctica,” says June. “Nobody even _knew_ anybody from there!”

“I don’t think anyone lives there full time,” says Eddie. “It’s all scientists, doing research.”

“On what?”

He looks across the table to Richie, eyes blank as a tundra. "Things..."

“Uhh.” Richie doesn’t have anything besides alien parasites, either, and that’s not the sort of stuff he tries to put in his kid’s head in the PM hours.

“Ah... Magnets?” Eddie finally guesses.

“Oh, like a giant refrigerator!” June says, and who knows? Sure! Maybe she’s got the right idea.

Richie wracks his brain for some link back to his area of expertise. “I did a series with a guy who was in _The Thing_ but that... that was actually filmed in Alaska, I think? I don’t think I’ve met anyone who’s been to Antarctica, unless you count the penguins in Central Park.”

“Aw!” June exclaims, throwing her crayon filled hands in the air. “I shoulda thought of that!”

When they get to the theater Eddie insists on treating them. They funnel their way through the ticket line with June, vibrating in anticipation. A movie with her new best friend Eddie, mac and cheese at the diner, and now a bag of _any candy she wants?!_ This must be heaven.

“I wish they had coffee,” Eddie sighs to Richie as they look at the concessions menu. “It’s freezing in here and I left my jacket in my car when I got into yours.”

“Yeah, speaking of arctic!” Richie throws an arm around Eddie’s shoulders and gives him a hearty rub. “I always keep an emergency sweatshirt in the trunk I can run and grab?”

“Oh, would you?” Eddie allows himself to be coddled for only a moment. “What can I get for you? As though I don’t already know...”

“Popcorn-”

“-loads of salt, no butter-” Eddie remembers with a shudder. “You’re like a horse with a lick.”

With a stamp of his foot, Richie makes an equine harrumph. “You’re one to talk, Mr. Ed.” He gives him a grateful pat and then taps June’s shoulder. “I’m gonna get something from the car and be right back. Stay with Eddie.”

The glowing window full of candy allows June to tear herself from staring deep into its wonder for only a millisecond. “Okay!”

Richie was expecting a little bit more separation anxiety than that, or at least worry that he’d be late, but all right. Those are some very tantalizing Twizzlers.

He holds the door open for some incoming teenagers on his way out, remembers he doesn’t have to wait at the curb for June to take his hand, and then jogs out to the car. He takes a moment to make sure his emergency sweatshirt doesn’t stink, then turns back around. Upon his reentry, Eddie and June have loaded up on concessions and drifted towards the line at the theater doors. The teens Richie had previously let in stop short as they come in range.

“Hi, Mr. Kaspbrak!”

Eddie, who had hoped a school night might be better for avoiding students, makes a cursory wavy back. “Hi, guys.”

June skips forward, grabbing Eddie’s free hand and swinging like a tire. “Hello!”

Richie stands back and crosses his sweatshirt laden arms. Sorry Eddie, but your attempt at anonymity has been hijacked, and he is just gonna let it happen. This is even better than catching the trailers. 

One of the girls, the one who looks like she’s fifth wheeling, crouches with her hands on the ripped knees of her jeans. “Hiya, cutie!”

Her friend lets go of her not as cute boyfriend and does the same. “Mr. Kaspbrak, is this your kid?! Omigosh!”

“This is my friend’s daughter, June,” Eddie says, exchanging a smile with her.

“I’m his _Little Mermaid_ expert.”

“Oh yeah?” Ripped Jeans puts her hands on her hips, oh so impressed.

“Yeah!” June beams back. “I already saw it twice, and I’m gonna learn all the songs, even the funny French one, because it’s my dad’s favorite.”

“Aww, good going!” For that, Ripped Jeans offers June a high-five.

Omigosh continues to ignore her awkward boyfriend. “Are you gonna try out for Mr. Kaspbrak’s musicals when you go to high school?”

June gasps. She’s been told Eddie is a teacher, of course, but since he’s not from _her_ school this reality hadn’t quite congealed until just now. She looks back up at Eddie, awed and ignorant of their differing school districts.

“You’ve really done it now,” Eddie tells the girls.

“Okay,” Omigosh laughs. “See you later!”

“Goodbye!” June calls after the teens, dazzled by their adolescent swagger. “Oh man, maybe they’ll sit _next_ to us.”

The look Eddie gives Richie as he comes over is priceless. “She’s a tiny, concentrated you.”

“Makin’ friends and influencing people, huh Fish?” Richie hands off the sweatshirt to Eddie. “You’d prefer they think you sleep under your desk?”

Eddie frowns. “They don’t need to know where I sleep.”

“I just think it’s fun they let you out of your enclosure after hours, so you can romp around with all the other zoo animals!”

June bares her teeth with a growl and Eddie gives her a pet on the head that could calm a tiger. It seems to soothe him, too. He passes off the tray of popcorn and candy to Richie so he can pull over the sweatshirt, and reemerges smiling.

“Shall we?”

“Heave-ho to the mysterious fathoms below!”

Seeing as it’s a kid’s movie, they let June dictate the seating arrangement. Though part of Richie is sorry not to be sitting next to Eddie for whispering purposes, The Juna Fish Sandwich is a sweet little indicator of how much of a shine June has taken to him. 

Realistically, Richie would expect any friend he invites home to at least get along with his kid or else they wouldn’t be invited back- but this feels different. It didn’t matter so much if June was bored by one of his co stars, they’re around for five or six years, max. Easy come, easy go. From the moment Richie found Eddie, though- he knew he couldn’t let him slip away again. Eddie is _forever._ Combining that and June with whatever is going on in Richie’s chest when Eddie reaches over to nudge him is... big. (Humongous!)

 _“What?”_ Richie mouths at him. 

_“She is furious,”_ Eddie mouths back, pointing surreptitiously to the patron sitting in front of them.

 _“So?”_ Richie shrugs and keeps conducting the orchestra of reeds and turtle belly drums. If this lady has such freakish peripheral vision that a little bit of pantomime is ruining her day, she should invest in horse blinders. There were at least four kids in front of them dancing in their chairs during the last song!

Eddie just grins at him.

After the movie, they cross the parking lot together in a little chain. Mags hasn’t been strong enough to swing June between them since she passed about thirty pounds, so this is a cherry on top of what has already been a treat of an evening. June shrieks with every lift off and never seems to come back down in between, Richie’s floaty little Fish.

“Sha la la la, she went to a show, and now it’s time to go, her name is Fish the girl, _woah woah!”_

This version is a vast improvement, as far as June is concerned. As any six year old would tell you, that kissing song is sooo gross!

She skips back into a walk as their car comes into view. “I don’t know why anybody’d wanna stop being a mermaid,” she sighs. “Or give up her voice! All I wanna do all day is be a mermaid and sing and hang out with Daddy.”

“That does sound nice,” Eddie hums.

“Promise me something, June,” says Richie. “If you ever sell your voice to a sea witch at least get paid scale. _Fish scale.”_

Eh, that one goes over her head, but Eddie snorts. He hangs on to June when Richie lets go to unlock the car.

“I’m so glad you guys took me to see the movie,” he tells her, dangling their arms like a jump rope.

“This was my favorite time seeing it,” June agrees. “Do you think we could go again _next_ weekend?”

Richie opens the back door for her. “We’re driving up to Auntie’s for Christmas, remember?”

June smacks her forehead. “Oh yeah!”

“I’m sure we’ll find another time to do something,” Eddie promises. He’s much more prepared for June’s goodnight hug this time around. “Make sure your dad has a good Christmas for me, okay?”

“Okay!”

“Go ahead and buckle up, you monkeyshine,” Richie motions. After he shuts June in, he meets Eddie, lingering at the back of the car.

“You can have this back,” Eddie muffles, pulling off Richie’s sweatshirt again. 

The disarray of his hair makes Richie ache to touch it, but he resists. This isn’t quite the moment to take the plunge. Throw in a singing cartoon crab and it might be a different story.

  
  
_  
  
  


The holidays are a flurry of elementary school concerts, cousins, and Richie getting gut punched by the smell of Eddie’s cologne on his emergency sweatshirt every time he goes into the trunk. On the drive back from Maine, he makes use of it because his coat’s too sweaty to drive in long distance. It seeps Eddie into his subconscious for hours, so that by the time they get back to New York, Richie's subconsciously disappointed he isn’t waiting on their doorstep.

Well, he _is_ waiting, sort of. Among the mail that arrived while they were out of town is a greeting card addressed to Mags and a package for June. Once they get settled back in at home, she tears into the box to find three jolly red and white wrapped presents. There’s a rhinestoned sweater she puts on immediately, a Spirograph, and a plush penguin promptly dubbed Oreo.

Richie turns the box inside out while June spreads out on the floor with her pens, looking for one more card. _Hoping._ One message from Eddie, just for him. 

Is it stupid to expect something? Richie didn’t send anything to Eddie, yet. He had some ideas, but kept getting cold feet. It’s hard enough walking the line between classic, something any friend could give another, yet something that could only come from Richie to Eddie. Like a Hickory Farms basket of his own dried up, choppable, cheesy heart.

Until he can figure out how to get such a thing through the postal system, Richie makes do with having June write a thank you note with her new Spirograph. They even walk it to the corner mailbox, where there’s an extra afternoon pick up, in hopes of speeding it along to Eddie all the sooner.

A day and a half later, the telephone rings and Richie abandons the fabulous leftovers sandwich he was constructing himself.

“I’ll try and make it,” Eddie says when Richie invites him to drop in on their Saturday night plans. “This weekend is tough, with the semester starting, and auditions...”

“Would Sunday be better?” Richie asks. “It’s a school night so it’d have to be a little earlier, for June-”

“Sunday I have to drive out to a rental place for the set,” Eddie sighs. “All my paperwork is waiting on the dimensions... No, Saturday is better.”

“We could always shoot for another weekend!” Richie says, trying to be casual about it. “Or not. I don’t know. Maybe next month! We can’t monopolize _all_ your free time.”

Eddie laughs. “Believe me, if I make it through this week alive I’ll be raring to throw some Skee-balls with you.”

“Oh yeah, the therapeutic value is through the roof,” Richie grins. “It’s a shame the arcade doesn't pipe in Enya and give massages on the air hockey table, too.”

But Eddie isn’t by the row of Skee-ball games when they get there. He isn’t there after they eat their hot dogs, or after June takes a run through the playground. Richie keeps an eye out all night, but by the time their cup full of quarters is empty, June has run out of steam, too. They trade in their prize tickets for a fistful of bouncy balls and a coffee mug for Mags and head home.

After he tucks June in, and takes his contacts out, Richie lays around on the couch feeling restless, unsure if he should call Eddie to see what happened, or if that would be as clingy as he fears becoming. Again, where is the line? Even if Eddie wouldn’t mind, he doesn’t want to go stampeding over it, because he has no idea what’s on the other side. _Here be dragons,_ and he’s already got his hands full with mermaids!

Since Richie hasn’t decided on a course of action with the TV yet either, he has it set low enough to hear the knock at the kitchen door. That _has_ to be him. Richie jumps to answer despite the fact that it’s January and he’s in shorts. Sure enough, as he tip toes across the chilly tile, there’s a familiar flash of blond peeking through the cow print.

“Hey!” Richie puffs, making his glasses fog. He pulls them off and hooks them on his shirt.

Eddie stands in the porch light bearing a large white box and a dismal expression. “I didn’t want to ring the bell too late.”

Richie nods. “Yeah, June’s asleep.” He looks down at his bare feet. “You wanna come in?”

“Thank you.” Eddie follows him through, but he doesn’t put his box on the table when Richie indicates that he make himself at home. “I’m so sorry I didn’t make it tonight,” he apologizes, keeping his voice low. “Call backs were a fiasco. By the time I got out, I knew you’d be wrapping up. I hope June wasn’t too disappointed.”

“It’s fine! I uh, didn’t tell her you were coming.” Richie admits.

Eddie looks up at him with those big dark eyes. “Why not?” he asks, clearly a little hurt.

That does it for Richie. He can never bear to see anyone sad. He doesn’t think Eddie is out to abandon him and June- if anything, he hopes just the opposite. In any case, he’s not going to know for sure until he _says_ something.

“Because...” Richie makes a futile gesture in the air and stares up at the ceiling. “I don’t know what’s going on with me,” he tells Eddie. “With you... Me _and_ you.”

When he chances a look back at Eddie, he’s smiling, if still a little somber around the edges. “Richie- I think I know what you mean,” he says, shuffling his feet.

“You do?” _He_ barely understands the meaning.

Eddie nods. “Like when I asked to go to the movies a night when there wouldn’t be so many students...”

“Oh.” There had been a moments of tension then, certainly. Richie hadn’t been eager to pry at it, but now it seems there’s a lobster mallet on hand.

The kitchen has never seemed so quiet as when Eddie puts down his box. Richie’s heart thuds with it so powerfully, he almost pulls out a chair to swoon into like a Victorian heroine.

“It’s not that I don’t want to be seen out with you, but I don’t know what to say to other people about you, yet,” Eddie continues. He maintains his distance, pinching the edge of the box for what little stability it offers. “I mean, it’s inappropriate to talk to students about my personal life, regardless, but until I have a chance to talk to you about my feelings- I don’t want you to feel like I’m brushing you off.”

Richie’s mouth goes dry. “So you, you, uhm.” His hand whirls in a propeller, trying to get it out. “You’re saying you- you have feelings for me....?”

“That’s why it was hard to imagine working with you.” Eddie gnaws on his lip, like he might burst into tears otherwise. "Back then. And now."

“Oh, shoot. I mean, it's prime time. _Shit.”_

Richie’s instinctively minced swear gives Eddie a laugh, at least. “I guess you’ve been picking up on it,” he smiles gently. “But really, I have no expectations. I know you’re not-”

“Well!” Richie’s voice cracks, appropriately enough for this late in life blooming. “I’ve been thinking about it,” he says. “About you.”

Eddie’s nervous hand on the box goes still and he looks up at him, surprised. “Wh- about-”

“Being with you. Wanting to. Being _in love_ with you,” says Richie. He watches Eddie absorb it. The smoothing of his brow. The pinking of his cheeks.

“You love me?” He blinks.

“Either that, or I'm coming down with a cardiac condition,” Richie coughs. “Any chance that's a defibrillator?” he thumbs at the box, hoping for a moment to regroup.

Eddie rolls his eyes and slides it over. “Go ahead,” he smirks. “Merry Christmas.”

“For me?” Richie unhooks his glasses again so he can best appreciate this. “I was gettin’ a little jealous of the girls, there,” he sniffs, lifting the lid by the shiny silver bow on top. “You didn’t even write me a card...”

“I would have sent it, but I guess it's a gag gift with an explanation, and it would get turned upside down...”

“Uh?”

Inside is something that absolutely would have spooked Richie if he’d opened it out of the blue. Especially without his glasses. Standing in the box is one of those styrofoam heads he sees in wardrobe all the time, wearing a feathered wig made in Richie’s same rusty color.

Eddie gives a sly shrug. “I just thought... In case you ever wanted to rewrite some history.”

“June is gonna flip!” Richie laughs, lifting the whole thing out to admire its glory. “Where did you even get this?”

“I have a hair and makeup catalogue for the musical.”

"Oh, man." Richie puts the head back in the box and closes it for safekeeping. “You are not gonna believe this...” 

“I may well be at my daily limit,” Eddie muses.

“You can handle it. Shh.”

Richie slips his hand into Eddie’s and motions to follow him out of the kitchen. The belated Christmas gift he has for him is tucked away in his nightstand, but that's down the hall past June’s room. Eddie creeps along behind him, into his bedroom, silently bewildered until he can shut the door behind him. He chuckles when Richie finally presents him with a small open box.

“I gave you hair and you got me a _watch.”_

“You shoulda told me you wanted to do an O. Henry gag! I would’ve figured out what to get you a lot sooner," Richie grins.

“It’s gorgeous.” Eddie admires the dial with a stroke of his thumb.

“Vintage, late Sixties,” Richie tells him. “Figured it’s something a square like you woulda liked.” He takes it out so Eddie can see the engraving.

_From one  
_ _has-been to  
_ _another_

“It was either that or _‘If I could turn back time’,_ but then I’d have to pay Cher a cut,” Richie snickers.

“Oh, Richie.” Eddie clutches the watch and throws his arms around his neck.

 _God,_ does it feel good to hold him with no anticipation of letting go. Sunday night before a bank holiday good. Scratch that- Saturday night when your kid’s already been put to bed and you haven’t been with anyone since before she was born and someone you’ve wanted maybe all your life is in your bedroom good.

They sway a little and Eddie hums at Richie’s shoulder, content. “I love you, you old hack.”

“I really _really_ love you too, Spaghetti,” Richie says, squeezing him tight. He feels Eddie start to turn his face. As his nose traces along his cheek Richie pulls back just enough to grin. “Now, wait! Were you picturing this moment with me wearing the wig? I can go grab-”

But Eddie kisses him before he can finish his threat. So sure and eager, the balance to weeks- _years_ of holding back. There’s no such thing as wasted time, any more. No embarrassment for how deeply they feel. After all that wondering, Richie finally knows how it feels to have Eddie’s smirking lips against his, how freely they open and give their love. He can taste every unspoken endearment here on the tip of his tongue, sweet and sustaining. If Eddie didn’t break away first, he’d never stop.

“Well.” Eddie smiles up at him. “I guess now we know.”

“Yeah,” Richie breathes. “I never let myself think beyond this point, though.”

“Oh, really?”

Eddie withdraws for a moment to put his new watch on, his dark, intent gaze narrowing. Richie helps with the buckle and swallows a hungry lump in his throat. The way Eddie’s golden curls fall when he looks up through his lashes like that makes Richie feel like he’s locking eyes with a lion through the grass.

“You’re intimidating, I dunno!”

 _“I’m_ intimidating?” Eddie laughs.

“Guh!” Richie tugs at his tee shirt’s collar. “Nobody alive can heckle me like you- if I put in a poor performance, I’ll never work in this town again!”

“On the other hand,” Eddie purrs and circles Richie in his arms, “-put in a good enough performance, and I won’t let you play for anyone but _me,_ ever again.”

“Mmh, like a Vegas residence! Cushy.” Richie licks his lips as Eddie tip-toes up to kiss him once more. 

This time is more exploring. Their mouths meet in a soft click, then deeper, then retreating once more. Eddie drags his lips down Richie’s neck, leaving little love bites all the way down to his collar. Richie burrows his nose in Eddie’s hair and breathes like he’s never been outside before and Eddie is a garden. He dots his petal soft temple with a kiss, then picks up Eddie’s chin and angles him so he can taste his pulse as well.

 _“Unbelievable,”_ he mutters, inhaling there. Before moving on, he sucks a hard kiss where even a turtleneck might not disguise it tomorrow.

Eddie grips into his waist with a moan. “Get the light and take me to bed?” he asks.

_Yes._

Richie flicks the switch behind Eddie and then crowds him. “Not to quote Mags in the heat of the moment but, uh, you wanna take off your coat and stay awhile?”

Eddie just chuckles into another kiss and starts zipping and unbuttoning, blind. To ‘help’, Richie pushes him against the door. He pins the fabric as Eddie wriggles out of his coat, his vest, his shirt-

“Do you want to-”

_“Yeah.”_

“-Lock the door?”

That too.

Richie snakes his way past Eddie’s hips to reach the knob, then picks him up and carts him backwards to the bed. They both abandon their glasses to the nightstand and nudge and kiss and touch in the darkness until their eyes adjust to the ice blue highlights and indigo shadows of winter. Until their combined heat negates the urge to bury themselves in blankets or anything else but each other. Now that Richie’s got Eddie all but undressed, there’s no question of his readiness for the occasion. He strains against his shorts, desperate to be touched, reaching for every bit of Eddie he can get his hands on, and pulling him closer. He’s so warm and smooth under Richie’s hands, silken haired and gliding muscle, lined in a moonlit halo.

Eddie’s hands are more targeted. Now that he’s got Richie where he wants him, he’s keeping him there. He pulls off Richie’s shirt and then plants his hands on his chest and sits where Richie can throb under the inviting heat of him. 

“God, Eddie, I’ll do whatever you want,” he pants.

What Eddie seems to want is to rub off on him until this is a moot point. “What do _you_ want?” he asks back.

“Literally anything will work on me right now. Try reciting the Gettysburg Address.”

Eddie squints one eye like he’s thinking about it. “Mmm, no.”

Richie grins up at him. “What about- _Ladies and Gentlemen, the story you are about to hear should be true, but the Derry Boys keep terrible case notes. Names have been changed only to please their juvenile sensibilities...”_

“‘Juvenile’,” Eddie smiles.

“S’that what we are?”

“I think at this age it’s just called obscene.”

Eddie’s hands slide from Richie’s chest, down along his arms, and catch their fingers together. They’re close enough to kiss again and Eddie, with his brilliant ability to keep Richie guessing, bends, shifting and trapping their cocks together between their bellies.

 _“Ha..._ Oh, Eddie baby, that’s so hot,” Richie wheezes. He can feel every inch of Eddie, hard against him. He bucks to make sure Eddie gets the same. “You feel that? That’s how bad I want you, honey.”

 _"Yes."_ Eddie sucks in a sharp breath right out of his mouth. _“Yes, yes.”_

Richie’s keeps moving, chasing after that same squeeze of their bodies. Eddie breaks their hands apart to claw at him as they kiss, so Richie starts dragging down their underpants and copping every feel he can get along the way.

Eddie finally breaks at this ungentlemanly handling of his rear end. “Do you have anything we can use?” he asks.

“I have some extremely expired Trojans,” Richie says brightly. “Fossils records, basically. From the actual Trojan war.”

Might even be from the same box he can thank for June, so- _really_ extremely expired.

Eddie huffs a laugh as he kicks his briefs off into some dark corner. “I’m clean, and I don’t mind if you don’t mind,” he says. “What about lube?”

“Well duh! I’ve just been a single dad for most of the Eighties, not a monk!”

“Shh, vow of silence,” Eddie reminds him with a smirk.

With that, they roll their entanglement over to the side of the bed with the nightstand. Richie finds what they need, heart racing. He catches Eddie staring at his cock when he sits back on his heels, and makes sure to return the compliment.

“Eddie m’love, you have got the most gorgeous dick I’ve ever seen in person,” he hums. 

Eddie laughs. “I’ll try and take that in the spirit it was intended.”

Richie touches a pretend earpiece. “What’s that? _Kkssshh!_ My producers are saying I can’t say ‘gorgeous dick’ on air? What a buncha- _Beeeeep!_ ” 

Eddie reaches out to give Richie’s hard length a stroke. “Well, I suppose you’ll have to do.”

“Hhnn. In _that_ case...” Richie lowers himself to kiss that crafty look off Eddie’s face. “If it’s _such_ an eyesore. I _could_ put it somewhere you don’t have to look at it,” he offers.

A visible wave of anticipation travels through Eddie’s whole body. “Would you?”

“It’s all Greek art to me,” Richie grins. Eddie gives him a fond swat on the arm for that and steals the lube. “As long as I get a peek under your fig leaf!” Richie chuckles.

“You will,” Eddie promises. After another kiss he moves his legs to bracket them around Richie, and _my oh my._ “It’ll probably be easier if I’m on bottom this time around, anyway,” Eddie tells him.

The idea of there being a _next_ time would already be enough to light Richie’s brain on fire, but then Eddie reaches down with glistening fingers. His rosy cock bobs in the air while he works his hole, and before Richie can think twice, he’s shuffling his knees into position to make the most of it.

“Oh,” Eddie sighs, as Richie sinks his mouth on him. _“Sweetheart.”_

“Mmmmmm.”

Even if it’s a foggy memory at this point, Richie’s gotten enough head in his lifetime to know the lay off the land. He gets the tip wet enough to shine in the light and rolls the skin, making it sheath and unsheath on command for him like a tame (and lovingly pampered) beast. If he thought he enjoyed Eddie’s natural aroma before, now he has tasted it at its purest and _knows_ this is what he craved. He kisses and sucks and plays with him until Eddie clutches at his head, begging for mercy.

“Please, _hhnn!_ Richie, Richie, _darling,”_ Eddie whines. “God, oh-”

He cuts himself off before he can get too loud and stifles Richie too, with an ecstatic jolt of his hips. Let it be know, it is Richie's absolute pleasure to try and ride him over the edge. He pumps him faster and Eddie comes hot and bitter in his mouth, fingers curling, legs squeezing around his body.

Richie probably only gets about half of it, in truth, but enough to know he definitely likes this. He wipes his mouth off on Eddie’s shaking thigh and mutters kisses in the smear. “Eddie, baby. That was amazing,” he says. “You’re so incredible. So gorgeous, I just wanna make you come for me again and again.”

_“Good glory.”_

As Eddie relaxes a little, Richie kisses his way back up his sticky body. He loves the mole on his hip, and the dampened tawny curls trailing up his stomach. He loves the way Eddie’s lashes flutter when he’s trying to catch his breath, and his especially dopey afterglow smile, free of his usual wry edge.

“Hey,” Richie smiles back. “I love you,” he kisses at the corner of Eddie’s mouth.

Eddie makes a sound like a dove as he gathers Richie into his arms. “Love you,” he mushes back.

“Pretty good for my first crack at it, huh?”

Ah, there’s Eddie’s patented twist reappearing. “Beginner’s luck.”

“Rematch?” Richie snipes mustachey kisses down his neck and laps up his delicious giggles. “You can try and win back some of your marbles!”

Eddie rolls his head back against the pillow. “I’d like to lose you some of yours,” he chuckles. First one of his blissfully uncoordinated heels meets Richie’s flank, and then the other. It brings their nethers into hot, slippery contact once again. “Go ahead,” he urges, chest heaving. “Shoot.”

“Yessir,” says Richie, thrilled to oblige. He reaches down and gets a grip on his cock, gets it wet enough to make a mess of Eddie’s cleft as he teases him. “Let me in, baby, it’s cold out.”

The bed creaks as Eddie pulls his knees up as far as he can. “Come in, come in,” he whimpers as Richie nudges in the tip. “Richie-“

“I’m here, buddy,” he kisses Eddie. “Just going slow. Damn, you feel good.”

 _“God yes,_ come on, come on, Richie,” Eddie pants as he pushes in deeper. Squeaks, even.

“Shh, honey. You okay?” 

Eddie nods and strains to meet him, holding his face. He looks at Richie up close, nose to nose. “You?”

 _“Of course,”_ Richie whispers to him. “I’m fantastic. I _finally_ have you.” He pauses to catch his breath and press more comforting kisses to Eddie wherever he can reach. Eyelids, cheek, neck, chest. Perspiration makes every one so succulent, Richie could drink him. _Swim_ in him. He sinks deeper and deeper.

“Finally,” Eddie repeats, when he’s fully inside. “Finally have you.”

They wrap together, Eddie around his waist, Richie leaning on his elbows with fistfuls of Eddie’s hair. Everything is tight and close and perfect, and maybe it was never separate at all, Richie’s just misremembering.

He starts thrusting in earnest, burying a grunt in Eddie’s neck. _“Nng_ , Eddie. Hold on, sweet thing.”

“Oh yes,” Eddie gasps. _“Mmm!_ Make me yours.I just wanna be _yours.”_

“You always were,” Richie claims with a kiss. “And I belonged to you.”

Eddie looks up at him, brimming with more and more glittering tears with each shove of his hips. More _ah, ah, ahhhs_ , and frantic fingers.

 _“Shhh._ My sweet Eddie. My Eddie love.”

“Richie, oh! _Darling.”_

Again and again they push together, gasping, soothing, and gripping. Eddie kneads Richie’s rear, keeping him close and never letting him even accidentally break their connection.

 _“Jesus,”_ Richie hisses at a particularly well timed touch. “Do that again.”

Eddie rubs his hole harder. “Yeah?”

“God, Ed- _mmmkk!”_

Then Eddie goes ahead and hooks his thumb inside him and whatever plans Richie may have had to make poetic, impractical love to him until sunrise are brought to a sudden, yet somehow more drawn out conclusion than he can ever remember having before. He spills into Eddie with a sob of delight, wrung out like a sponge cake, sweetness everywhere. He collapses on top of Eddie, a gooey, delirious mess.

“Richie,” Eddie whispers to him, holding him tight. He puffs kisses at his shoulder, still catching his breath, himself. “You made me so happy tonight.”

_"Me too.”_

Richie kisses him back, indulging in an amount of tongue that would be excessive if they weren’t still so loose and love-fuddled. They smother each other for as long as their cooling bodies will abide, then each retreat to the bathroom. 

When Richie comes back out, Eddie is sitting on the edge of the bed in his shorts, contemplating his pile of clothes. He looks up at Richie hopefully. “Is it all right if I stay a little while?” he asks.

This is fantastic, because in Richie's (admittedly dusty) experience, haste in the bedroom often masks a desire to get home to a prescription neck pillow, or an unfamous boyfriend, or a white noise machine or something like that. He wouldn't want to keep Eddie from any necessary bedtime routines, but speaking for himself, it’d be nice to shake up his years-long streak of late night loneliness.

“Yeah, sure! June won’t be up until around six,” he says looping an arm around Eddie’s middle and rolling them into the bed.

Plenty of time for both cuddling and sneaking off. Maybe even a late night snack, if they should feel so inclined!

Eddie lays on his side and gets comfortable with a pillow. “I’ll keep an eye on the time,” he says, shaking his watch wearing wrist with a grin.

“Handy,” Richie says, bouncing his eyebrows and scooching in for a kiss.

“Mhmm. Pass me my glasses?”

Richie turns over to get them and then backs up a little, rump first. With no more hint than that, Eddie curls up behind him, tucking all their angles together. He weaves an arm around Richie and strums his fingertips at his chest.

“Bah! At least pull up the covers if you’re gonna tickle me,” Richie shivers.

Eddie does so with a chuckle, then settles back in. _“Now_ I can feel you up?” he checks, sliding his palm to Richie’s front again.

“I _just_ put out! And you didn’t even cast me in your play...”

“Pssh.” Eddie lays a consoling kiss between his shoulders. “You’d make a great Wolf Prince. You’ve already got the hair for it.”

“Oh, ha ha.” Richie brings Eddie’s knuckles to his lips for a grateful kiss. “What happened at call backs, anyway?”

  
  
-  
  
  


“Daddy?”

Richie wakes up when someone else stirs the bed. He clears his throat and rolls around and-

The door rattles.

“Dad! Your door is _stuck.”_

The someone in his bed is Eddie, _not_ June hurtling in to lure him to breakfast. His glasses are askew as he sits up and exchanges a look of shock with Richie.

 _"Oh no,”_ he mouths.

Richie holds a finger to his lips. “Wow! That’s so weird!” he calls to June.

He’s never had a reason to lock June out of his room overnight before! He’s never had to sneak someone who shouldn’t be here out of said room, either! 

“Should I get Grammy?” June asks, trying to adhere to the Tozier family chain of command in a crisis. What a good girl.

“Nah, June it’s okay! I know how to fix it...”

For his part, Eddie lays back down and tries to make himself non existent, or at least very small under the covers. Richie gives his lumpy shape a reassuring pat and looks around, fast. Dolly shot in an action movie, crank the frame rate!

Window? Completely blocked by rose bushes. Closet? Packed to the gills. Eddie _could_ hide in the en suite, but then he’d still have to sneak out the rest of the ground floor while June is bouncing off the walls waiting for breakfast...

“Tell you what, Fishie! Why don’t you go put on those new tights from Grammy, and some sneakers, and a coat... and we’ll go to McDonalds for breakfast!”

“Yaaaaaay!”

The sound of giggling trails away down the hall. That should buy Richie a little time. June and tights are not a speedy mix.

He pulls the covers down from Eddie’s side of the bed. “God, you look like _that_ in the morning and I gotta go,” he laments, taking in Eddie’s mostly naked body and perfectly rumpled hair.

Eddie winces. “I’m so sorry, I fell asleep!”

Richie shakes his head and bends to Eddie, catching his gorgeous face for a kiss. “Mm! No, last night was great,” he tells him. “Ripped right outta my wildest! I just shoulda got you a watch with an alarm...”

The worried pinch of Eddie’s brow melts away. He grins up at Richie and slips his hands to his chest, and for a moment they’re both returned to last night’s contentment.

“It was _wonderful,”_ says Eddie.

“Yeah,” Richie smiles, all doughy. “This is good,” he says, wagging a finger between them. “This is _really_ good. But it should probably stay between us, right now?”

Eddie’s eyes go wide. “Right! Obviously this isn’t the way to, uh- _gosh no,”_ he says, eyeing his own nudity. He looks back up at Richie, understanding perfectly. He pets his chest right over his heart, scratching into his hair. “Richie, darling. This is all new, and there's so much to-! Well, it’s _okay_ that you need some time.”

Richie lets out a relieved breath. He really did bag an angel. “Thank you,” he kisses him slow, one last time. Okay- _two_ last times, and _then_ he scrambles up out of bed. He pulls open a series of drawers and begins fumbling his way into some fresh clothes. “So, when we go, you can let yourself out?”

“Got it,” Eddie nods, slipping out of bed, too.

There’s a dropped sweater on the floor that Richie catches on his toe and kicks up to himself. As soon as he has his head pulled through, he spins around to find Eddie again, hopping into his pants. “You’re getting in late, right?” he remembers. “Call you tomorrow night?”

Eddie zips and leans in to kiss him goodbye. “Can’t wait,” he whispers in his ear.

Within minutes, Richie is bundling June into the car. The prospect of some crispy hashbrowns has completely reset normality for her, now if only Richie could do the same. Eddie’s right- so much has changed since he tucked her in last night.

He needs to get a hold of himself so he can think! There are factors at play here beyond _Would I like to kiss Eddie? Yes/No._ When huge, life altering things happen to Richie, they don’t just happen to him. He and June are a package deal. His choices dictate where she lives, who she knows, her happiness, her safety, her weird hang ups that will follow her into adulthood and shape all of her relationships forever and destroy her sense of trust and maybe ruin her life if Richie doesn’t handle things well and _maybe a large black coffee was not the right call!_

Woah! What does he tell June when she’s melting down? One thing at a time. 

He’s having an impromptu jaunt to McDonalds with his daughter because she almost caught him in bed with someone. No one is hurt. But this is a one time fix- this can’t be his solution forever. If he’s going to keep seeing Eddie (he is), then he needs to figure out what that could mean for their future, and _then_ he can worry about how to tell June about it without scarring her for life. All right? All right. Something to think about in traffic tomorrow. Meanwhile, he’s got some absorbing to do, and June’s got Sunday morning cartoons to get home to.

He’s still on autopilot while the Muppet Babies and Garfield are doing their thing, so when the buzzer on the dryer goes off in the basement, Richie forgets that he’s not the one who put in the load. 

Richie excuses himself to June with a pat on her fluffy head. “Keep an eye on Nermal for me, will ya?”

You would think piling a bunch of old lady unmentionables into a laundry basket would clue him in, but it doesn't. The creaking of someone else coming down the stairs doesn’t quite do it, either. 

“Well, hey! If I knew you were gonna save me the trouble I wouldn’t have come all the way down here,” Mags chuckles behind him.

Oh, yeah. This is _not_ Richie or June’s nightie, but almost everything is out of the dryer now. He goes ahead and baskets the rest with a sigh. “I didn’t know either, Mags. I’m kind of out of it.”

“You and Eddie had quite the night last night, huh?” 

Richie stands up so jerkily he almost loses the whole basket to the floor. _“What?”_

Mags gestures upstairs. “I ran into him earlier when I came through to start the laundry. Your movie marathon?”

Because Mags has her own apartment and tends mostly to be on Richie’s turf between when June’s school gets out and Richie gets in from work, he completely discounted her as a likely bystander this morning. It's good Eddie still has the old schoolboy reflex to cover for each other, because Richie has no brainpower to spare. He might have just blurted it all right out of the closet- which would _definitely_ be too much upheaval for him in less than twenty-four hours. He hasn’t even had a chance to shower since he and Eddie had sex yet! The whole getting walked out on with an infant thing made him and Mags close, but not _that_ close.

Richie clutches the laundry basket for dear life. “Yeah! Uh, _you know,”_ he says, himself not knowing where he’s going with this at all. “Boys night went later than we expected! He needed to crash.”

_In my bed, with me, your son who has never been with a man before but is now contemplating doing so for the rest of his life because he’s in sudden-but-not-sudden-at-all, deep, life altering love with his oldest friend and how that’s gonna play out for the six year old upstairs and his career and his whole world view!?_

Mags just smiles. “Ah, it’s great to see you guys back at it.”

“Yeah,” Richie blinks, finally letting her take the basket. “It is great.”

She wouldn’t mind about him being with Eddie, he knows. Probably she’ll be surprised how out of left field it all is, but she’s not particularly conservative. His own ‘Live and let live’ motto was all her doing, and he definitely watched her sob through _Lawrence of Arabia,_ once.

When it’s not quite so fresh, Richie will tell her. Meanwhile, he might tell Eddie to park down the block if they’re trying to be discrete.

  
  
-  
  
  


Like clockwork on the wall in an exploded gum factory, the L.I.E. is backed up on Monday morning. Instead of zoning out, Richie turns the radio off and rolls down the window, in hopes the chill winter air will make him icicle sharp.

The first thing Richie has to ascertain is Eddie’s level of involvement in his life. Where does he see this going? Depending on where he’s at, this could be anything from compartmentalized rendezvous in a motel to taking hostages at City Hall until they cough up a marriage license. _Do_ they have to confine their romance to private spaces? Considering Richie’s private space involves a child- would Eddie want to move in with him someday and become a stepparent?

Not taking the time to make sure everyone’s on the same page... well that’s not a mistake Richie wants to make again.

Then the next thing he has to figure out is what information June needs to feel secure. If he starts having lots of unexplained nights away after making a point of giving up club work to be home with her, that’s gonna leave a mark. Above all, Richie does not want his daughter to feel abandoned. On the other hand, if instead he starts having Eddie over all the time, he’s going to have to justify why he’s allowed so many more playdates than her- so probably he’ll want to cap that at once a week while he’s building up everyone’s comfort levels. Then, if anyone’s going to be joining the household, like any roommate, June deserves at least a month's notice. And probably a present in lieu of rent reduction! 

And hang on a minute... Does June even know what being gay is? There are plenty of divorceés at the bus stop and afterschool specials on step parents these days, but at some point he’s gonna have to write _that_ child friendly chapter of curriculum himself.

Hell, there will be a lot of people he’ll have to tell about him and Eddie besides June and Mags. Rhonda, obviously. The aforementioned bus stop parents. Any of June’s playdates’ parents who are wondering why Eddie would be coming to collect her. Same goes for the admin at her school, probably. He should probably check in with his lawyer and see what they can put in place in case Kim catches wind and suddenly becomes a moralist.

 _Ugh._ He’s giving himself a headache and his nose is getting runny. Time to roll those windows back up.

When he gets to his fitting at NBC, he does make an attempt to fish for some friendly wisdom on the matter. Besides the guest arc he’s about to do, he’s done two other shows and a commercial with Beverly. They go way back, and he knows her history.

“Now that you got your hands in my pants, mind if I ask a personal question?”

She looks up from safety pinning some suspenders in place with an eye roll. “Sure, creep.”

“I, uh- I started seeing someone,” Richie says, for the first time in years. He wasn’t sure his mouth could still make these shapes. “First time since June. And I just wondered, ya know. How long did it take Timmy to adjust to Ben?”

“Oh.” Beverly stops smirking at him as she realizes this is an actual grown up conversation. She straightens up and plants her fists on her apron clad hips. “Well, Timmy was barely two. He hardly knew any different.”

“Ehh, I forgot the math,” Richie admits, staring at the fitting room mirror. _Somehow._ It’s too bright in here not to see all the wrinkles he’s heaped on since the days when their kids were babies.

Beverly carries on with her work, taking a jacket from the rack and helping him into it. “It was more of an adjustment for Ben,” she says. “Most guys get about nine months' warning, but we moved in in a week!”

After unfurling the lapel, Beverly lets go. Is this jacket made of lead? All the air gets knocked out of Richie.

Logistically he can’t imagine getting Eddie in his house in a week, but _nine months_ feels like an unbearable wait. They’ve already spent so long apart.

“Yeah! Yeah, it must be a big shock for him...” Richie says, thinking of the mental gymnastics Eddie must be doing right now.

“Ben handled it, though,” says Beverly, happily. “Timmy and him adore each other, so it can be done! Have yours already met?”

 _“Ah,”_ Richie starts, but Beverly is ripping the jacket off him in favor of another. 

“Too short...”

“-They’ve met and it’s been great _,_ gangbusters, house afire! But that was before things got, uh-”

Beverly puts the jacket back on a hanger with a sharp look. “Steamy?” she offers.

Richie feels himself blush a bit, but not out of prudishness. “I was tryin’ to pick between ‘lovey dovey’ and ‘romantic’,” he confesses.

“Aww. You _deserve_ it,” Beverly says, with an authoritative air of someone who has made a practice of reminding herself of the same.

Before she sends him to cameras, Beverly takes the opportunity to show him the latest pictures of her and Timmy and Ben. Cute kid, of course, but the main thought Richie has is _look how much better off she is now._ It was rough when Beverly left Tom, but it was worth the trouble. Good things are worth it. June and Eddie are worth it.

-

_This Old House_ is a religion for Mags, and June is her youthful acolyte. _What’s a sconce? What's a loft? Is a grand staircase the grandma of the rest of the stairs?_ Their rapt devotions are the perfect opportunity for Richie to slip out of the room and make a phone call. He shuts himself in his bedroom with the phone and crashes into the pillows, exhausted after a long day of turning his emotional pockets inside out and shaking himself by the ankles. It’s okay now. There’s still a bit of Eddie here, to break his fall.

Richie dials the numbers he already has memorized, and melts at the chirpy hello on the other end.

 _"Honey,”_ he calls Eddie. Golden, sweet, and soothing. “Hi, how are ya?”

“I’m wonderful.”

“Whatcha up to? Thinkin’ about me?”

“At the risk of giving you a fat head, yes,” Eddie says. The indulgent smile is audible.

“Yeah, me too,” Richie grins back. “I’ve been thinking about you, and us- and everything- all day. Really, _everything,”_ he tells Eddie, becoming more serious. “Every way we could do this, every way it could fall apart. All the ins and outs... But I don’t wanna sit here and read you a spreadsheet.”

Eddie hums. “It’s all right,” he promises. “You can start with what you want. It's all up to you."

There’s no hint of reservation. He’s only ever wanted to _give give give_ to Richie, his time, his laughter, and his love most of all. _Yes._ Eddie’s only ever wanted to say yes. That’s why Richie can ask without fear.

“Well, if I was just out for myself, I wouldn’t be on the phone with you, right now, Eddie- I’d be driving to your house with all my favorite suits streaming out the windows!”

Eddie laughs. “Believe me, I almost packed up my trunk and drove over myself.”

“Yeah?” Richie sighs happily, awash in the antidote of their agreement. “Mmm. If it were just me, I’d let ya. Whatever side of the bed, whatever drawers you want! I want to be with you and make you at home here, someday,” he confesses to Eddie. “I wanna sleep next to you at night, and have June wake us up with a bellyflop in the morning. But, uhm, it’ll take some time before we’re all ready, I think. _I’ve_ known you for years- but you guys should get a chance to get comfortable too.”

Eddie makes an understanding noise. “You’re right.”

Of course.

“I was thinking, we try and all get together once a week? Do lunch or something like that. Game night. Movie night. It’s uh, not exactly the hot and heavy honeymoon period we might want,” Richie admits. “But-”

“That’s all right, Richie,” Eddie promises gently. “Really! You’re thinking about what’s best for your daughter. I- I really love you for that.” He takes a breath with a somewhat tattered edge- after all, he’s flown these colors for a very long time. “You know- I never thought... that a family like yours was something I could be a part of, Richie. I was never even a child with _one_ loving parent."

That makes Richie’s heart ache and shrivel and burst all at once. “Oh, honey.”

But Eddie clears his throat, determined to forge ahead. “I really want to be someone you can rely on. Someone you know cares, for you and June. Nothing would make me happier, Richie. Just say the word, and I’ll be there.”

Richie grins. It’s _on_ then, Spaghetti Man. “What about by the end of the year?” he floats.

“Well,” says Eddie. “The summer would the best time for me to pack, so definitely by then I could be-”  
  
"Then how about you move in _during_ the summer?” Richie haggles.

Eddie pauses, thinking. “Hmm, last day of school for me is June 22nd, I think. So-”

“...By the end of the month?”

For a moment Richie thinks he’s pushing too hard. Having the whole summer to settle in would be perfect, though. They could have June’s birthday as a family. They could air out the house and redecorate a bit while moving Eddie in, or take a vacation together. There would be time to make June confident in the situation, the same way Richie nipped the bud on _But the other kids have Mommys_ angst before sending her to school. They’d have sunshine, and popsicle breaks, and sprinklers in the backyard, and each other, on and on, on the longest days of the year. It would start to make up for all the ones apart.

“Hmmm. _If_ you help me pack,” Eddie decides.

“Oh yeah!” Richie agrees. He flexes an arm Eddie can’t properly appreciate over the phone. “I’ll haul your boxes on my back down Jericho Turnpike, if I hafta.”

“Don’t put your back out,” Eddie chuckles. “Leave that to _me.”_

Richie groans. “God, I wish I could see you tonight.”

“I know...”

“Bet _Mags_ would love to see you again, too.”

“Oh, dear Lord. You heard.”

So they make their plans for the weekend before saying goodnight. It’s like rocket fuel, having something definite to look forward to, soon, and in a couple of months. Richie barrels back into the living room after they hang up and scoops June off the floor, into his arms.

 _“Krrk!_ This is the captain of June flight six two six. We are making our approach on the couch. _Krrk!_ Please clear a runway for landing!”

“Daahhh!” June cries, going rigid to be the best little airplane she can be.

They take a tour around the room, banking past Mags in the arm chair, climbing to impressive altitude, then diving. 

“Comin’ in hot!”

June provides the sound effects as they swoop. _“Nyyyeooooo!”_

Richie drops her into the cushions and then lands on his customary end. June immediately clambers her way into his lap, giggling.

“C’mere Flying Fish,” he says, gathering her up. “When you gonna get big enough to pick me up, huh?”

June throws her head back against his shoulder. _“Never!”_ she declares with relish. 

Richie is the last man alive who’d deny her an eternal state of cute-as-a-buttonness. “Mm, well. We’d probably need a bigger house if you were twice my height, anyway,” he teases. “Unless we cut a hole in the floor. You could be in the basement and the living room at the same time!”

"Our kitchen _and_ Grammy's!" says June. "Extra desserts!"

 _“This place has a lot of possibilities,”_ says Bob Vila on the TV.

  
  
-

For a few weeks, they follow the plan. Richie and June meet Eddie for an outing, or he comes over for a meal. There’s plenty of time to let things unfold naturally, before Richie has to go out of his way to explain things to June. First he’s trying to get a read on her existing knowledge of adult social lives. He’s not sure how much of a disconnect she has between concepts like dating and playing house, or baby dolls and adoption, for instance. So he keeps an eye on the TV they watch together, the games she plays, and what’s up with the families in their neighborhood, collecting data. Every once in a while he tries to engineer some direct feedback.

They’re at the strip mall one chilly afternoon, doing errands. Richie pauses at the curb to switch the bags he’s carrying to one hand so he can hold June’s, when she sees something. Bright flashes of electric blue, neon green, hot pink and purple paper, flapping in some poor dope’s hand. The guy must be passing out flyers for the incoming Circuit City. Well, June’s artistic sensibility kicks in at the sight of all that precious raw material amidst the drab gray of winter. She looks up at Richie hopefully, and points at her target.

“Go ahead.”

“Wait oooone minute!” she says, and then she skips off down the sidewalk to the pamphleteer.

“Hi,” he says, struggling to separate the pages with his gloves.

“May I have a blue one?”

Finally, he frees a sheet. “Give that to your parents!”

June’s indignation is palpable, yards away. _“This one’s_ for me. May I have another, please?”

What a shark.

“Uh, okay kid.” The pamphleteer pulls out a pink page as well.

“Thank you!” June says, claiming them both into her mittened grip. She turns around and trots back to Richie, delighted with her score.

 _"This one’s_ for parents,” she states, offering him the pink sheet.

“You can keep it,” Richie laughs. Then something about the moment clicks. Very nonchalant, he asks. “Do you ever wish you had two parents? Maybe you could have got him to give you three!”

Even under her thickly knit hat, June serves him a vicious eyebrow. _“No._ ” What a dumb question, Daddy. “But I _do_ wish I had a kitty!”

“Ahah. We’ll see about that,” says Richie, taking her hand.

June frowns about the cat, but at least she got her paper. She examines the advertisement for an opening week sale at Circuit City as they cross the parking lot. “What’s a reb-ate?” she sounds out.

“Re-bate,” Richie pronounces. “It’s like an after the fact coupon for people who like paperwork.”

“Eddie likes paperwork. He showed me a scriptwith all his notes.”

Richie smirks to himself. “That he does...”

  
  
-  
  
  


About a month in, they get a chance to dovetail an evening with June with a real date night. They make a Bisquick pizza with sections of everyone’s favorite fixings and rent some tapes. They cook and clean together, then pile onto the couch. June keeps dozing off towards the end of the family fare, nestled between them. She comes to during the rock n’roll needledrops, bewildered but pleased to find that she hasn’t been tucked into bed without a chance to say goodnight.

After some sleepy hugs, they toddle her to her room. Eddie leans in the door while Richie goes through her bedtime process, quietly observing the ropes. Cup of water. Reminder to wear socks. To keep June’s hair from being a rat’s nest in the morning, Richie helps braid it into pigtails. Then he turns on the nightlight and shuts off the overhead while she makes her stuffed animal selection.

“Oreo,” she decides, with a smile to Eddie.

“A blubbery buddy for a cold night. Good idea,” Richie says. He tucks her into the blankets and unfolds an extra halfway up the bed in case she wakes up wanting more. “Mind if Eddie listens while we read?”

“Does he already know our book?”

Richie flashes the cover at him as he sits up next to June.

“Believe it or not, they had Wilbur back in the olden days,” Eddie tells her.

“He can keep up,” Richie assures June.

After a chapter they say goodnight and slip out to the hallway, shutting the door oh so quietly.

Eddie is still dreamy eyed, leaned against the wall with one of his more disarmingly soft smiles. “You two are so sweet,” he sighs.

Richie threads his arms around him and gently pulls Eddie along to the living room. “Sooo sweet. Got some extra sugar if you wanna borrow a cup.”

Eddie grips him back and kisses him, slowing them to a tiptoe by the time they get to the wide open of the living room. He clings around Richie’s shoulders, soaking up their first chance to really hold each other in weeks. “This is all I want, Richie,” he tells him, so satisfied Richie can feel it coming off of him in warmth.

“All you want’s some hugging?” he teases.

“Mhmm.” Eddie grins up at him. “I’m all set, now. Have a good night,” he says, pretending to pull away.

“Oh, you can’t leave.”

“Why not?”

Richie shifts his weight, leading them into a dancing turn. “Your license is suspended. You got caught driving me crazy.”

“Mmm. I don’t think you’re in the clear to give me a lift home, either,” Eddie chuckles into a kiss.

Before they go to the bedroom, they put in _Charade_ and get cozy on the couch, while waiting out the hour or so it takes to be sure June is down. There’s no way Richie’s back will let him fall asleep out here, which is good for their intention not to repeat their last close call- until the lack of privacy invites another sort.

Richie has his head entirely up Eddie’s shirt, mouth sealed to flesh, when he hears a click and creak that can only be a door opening somewhere in the house. He sits up like a shot and crosses his legs, keeping all to himself like he’s never even heard of second base. With _Eddie?_ Preposterous. They are simply watching this very fine film on opposite ends of the couch as Universal Pictures intended when packaging it for home release!

The sound is not followed by a shuffle in the hallway, however. Instead, there’s a wooden complaint of a handrail and footfall on the stairs to Mags’ apartment.

As she flicks on the light in his kitchen, Eddie checks on Richie with an unsure look. Did she expect him here tonight? No, Richie shakes his head. He doesn't tell her everything. He’s entitled to have a spur of the moment guest without telling everyone on the block or summoning a town meeting, right? Eddie has time to tuck his shirt back in at least, before she appears in the living room.

“I blew a lightbulb,” she explains herself, holding up a fresh carton from the pantry.

“Oh, yeah! Help yourself,” Richie says. He’d rather his elderly mother not trip and fall in the dark, after all.

Eddie gives her a wave. “Hello Mags, nice to see you.”

“Hello, dear. Richie didn’t tell me you’d be over tonight, or I would have come down earlier,” she says, tsk-tsking at her son.

“Just a casual thing,” Richie smiles. He’s aware of himself sitting up straighter than he ever would after nine o’clock, though.

“That’s nice of you, dropping in,” Mags says. Then she checks the TV. “Oh, I love this one!”

“Yeah, I think this Cary Grant guy could be a real star,” says Richie, hovering at the edge of his seat, now. “Do you need me to get the stepladder and change that bulb for you?”

“Do you even need a ladder?” Eddie teases.

“Quiet down, cupcake.” Richie pops off the couch and takes Mags by the elbow before she can try and sit in her usual arm chair. He has no intention of waiting around to watch the end of this movie with her if she gets attached. “Mind pausing? I’ll be right back,” he tells Eddie, to make the exclusivity of their evening clear without being too rude. “Is it the one in the bathroom? I thought it was getting kinda dim in there...”

Mags gets swept along by his momentum, even with her years of experience handling him. She only somewhat questions it when they’re out of earshot, upstairs.

“I know you boys are doing your own thing,” she says, jovially enough, “-so thanks for taking a minute to help an old lady!”

“No problem.” Richie straightens his stool by a fraction of a centimeter. Then another. _Woof._ Almost getting caught has him nervous as a teenager. He feels a little dizzy, maybe he shouldn’t be climbing on furniture. 

“You okay?” Mags is frowning in the mirror, and even in the reduced light, Richie is sheet white.

“Uhm.”

 _This is it. Just go ahead and get it off your chest, buddy. You’ll feel better._ _Hey Mags, how many gay guys does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Just the one, but he teases his taller boyfriend who isn’t labeling himself yet into doing it!_

Richie picks up the carton off the bathroom counter. His prop work’s always been a crowd pleaser. “Hey Mags,” he says. “I’m in love with Eddie.”

That wasn’t how it sounded in his head, but all right.

Punchline or not, Mags bubbles out a quick laugh. “Is that what’s going on?” She sighs and looks up at the dark ceiling, shaking her head. “The way you rushed me out of there-”

“Aw c’mon! Eddie’s already gonna bust my chops for being a jerk.”

“Richard.” Mags lays a hand of motherly concern on his shoulder. “I’ll admit, I was a little worried you might be drinking again, with the hush hush. But I know you two’ve been spending an awful lot of your time together with June, so that didn’t seem right.”

“No, no.” Richie covers her hand reassuringly. “Just some good clean... secret love.”

“Well, that’s alright, then,” says Mags, looking up at him, accepting and good natured as ever. “A little crush never hurt anybody! You know, I thought he might be that way... One doesn’t like to make assumptions but he _is_ in the theater.”

“What about me? _I’m_ an actor!”

“On television,” Mags points out. She pauses to consider. “Does he know how you feel?”

Richie could shoot through the roof and make a skylight, negating the excuse for this conversation entirely. _“We’re on a date right now!”_ he tells his mother.

Finally, the dots start connecting into the shape of a Do Not Disturb door hanger.

“Oh!” Mags blushes. “You could have asked me to watch June so you two could go out, you know.”

“Yeah!” Richie throws his hands in the air. “Let’s roleplay that one, I’ll do both sides. _Mags,_ I have a date can you watch June? _Wow, Richie! Your first date since the baby. Who’s the special lady?_ Well Mags, I recently discovered something about myself, if you want to take a seat and- aww damn we missed the dinner reservation.”

Mags just laughs again and holds out her arms. Richie throws himself in, gratefully. Not everyone gets a mom like this.

“I’m glad you told me,” she says, squeezing him tight and rubbing his back. “My baby. I love you no matter what.”

“I know, I know,” Richie tells her. “I’ll definitely take you up on that babysitting offer in the future, don’t you worry...”

When they let go, Mags is wiping a happy tear. “You’re such a loving person, Richie. I always hoped you’d find someone,” she sniffs.

“D’aww.”

"And I always liked Eddie! I'll be happy to think of him as my boy, too."

Richie's throat prickles. "You two softies deserve each other," he says, and then he sets himself back to work or else she’ll get him crying next. He clears his throat and nudges the stool one last time and climbs up. “Well. We’re pretty serious, so go ahead and count your chickens, Mags. Gonna be a new rooster in the coop soon.”

She watches him unscrew the glass bowl and helps hand off things. “Really? That’s wonderful,” she says. “When it’s right, it’s right. I knew with your father right away, too.” 

“Yeah, I can count up to nine, so I always figured you weren’t against a little gun jumping...”

To really prove the Toziers are an impulsive people, Mags swats him in the stomach.

“Hey lady! I got delicate calibrations up here!”

Mags chuckles. “Does June know?”

Richie sighs and beckons for the cover again. “Eh. I’m trying to ease in on it. Lotta big concepts for a first grader.”

“She adores Eddie, though.”

“I asked her the other day if she ever wished she had another parent, and I got the most emphatic ‘no’ you ever heard in your life,” Richie tells her.

“Well, _of course,_ if that’s what you asked her.” Mags is glaring at him as he comes back down from the stool with much the same expressive arrangement of eyebrow as her granddaughter. “She’s very happy with what she’s got. You’ve done a terrific job as a father, you take care of everything she needs.”

 _“Parenting_ magazine will be coming by with my trophy, any day!” Richie gushes, graciously accepting the old dead bulb from Mags so he can throw it in the trash.

When he turns back around Mags has softened again. She pats his cheek. “Richie, Richie, Richie... You try letting her know that _you_ need more,” she tells him. “Let her imagine how a partner would make you happy.”

“Hmm,” Richie considers. From that point of view it all seems less nebulous. “That’s a good one, Mags. I’ll put in a word for you with the magazine people,” he grins.

After Mags says goodnight, Richie heads back downstairs to Eddie, tells him to hit play and then immediately shoves him back onto the couch.

“Mmf!”

Richie plants a real smacker on ‘im, the sort that presents a real dilemma about its suitability to be wrote home about. “Consider this coupling matriarchally blessed,” he mumbles to Eddie’s lips.

One down, one to go.

  
  
-  
  
  


Their next grocery run is a golden opportunity to try out Mags’ advice. Primo Daddy and June time. They put on matching glasses and write the shopping list together over breakfast. They test drive carts outside the Pathmark until they find one with the perfect handling. They make puns about the produce, whistle along to the radio, and pick out special treats for each other to have with lunch. Usually that last one happens exclusively in the candy aisle, but seeing as Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, Richie heads to the seasonal variety aisle instead.

The explosion of pink and red immediately captures June’s attention. Her fingers unhook from the cart as she gravitates to the big cellophane wrapped hearts and novelty shaped chocolates.

Richie chuckles. “Think we should split some chocolates as our treat?”

June turns back, face pink with the reflected color of all those shiny boxes. “I think we should each get our own!”

“But then who will eat the gooey ones you don’t like?” 

“Melissa!”

Richie snorts. “Ousted! By my own blood!”

But such is the beauty of friendship. I eat your pickles, you eat my coleslaw, and our burgers are the better for it.

“This one!” June decides. She takes a box bearing a picture of an oozing cherry cordial from the shelf. “That’s for you,” she says, scrunching her nose and dropping it into the cart.

“You know just what I like, Fish.” Richie crosses his arms and rubs his chin, looking at the shelf himself. “Hmm... If I were a June... If I were a little bitty fishy wishy girl...”

June bites back a smile, sucking in her lips and puffing her monkey cheeks. She wiggles in a fashion that professional interpretive dancers would find enviably deft. _The one with the M &Ms on it, cher Papá! _

He pretends to reach for a modestly sized box just above it.

“Gah!”

“No?” Richie pulls his hand back. “This one here with the boogers on it?”

“That’s M&M’s!” June giggles through her fingers.

“Oh! That makes more sense. This one.” They put it in the cart and continue a ways down the aisle past plastic flowers and cheaply made teddy bears with mispainted eyes, to the boxes of cards for school. “You need some of these, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I do,” June realizes. She puts her hands on her hips, gearing up for round two of the Valentine gauntlet. “We’re making mailboxes on Wednesday, I think? Melissa already had her cards yesterday and she was writing all the names in the class, and she asked me how to spell a boy’s _whole_ name, not just his nickname.”

Love is in the air! Richie plays dumb. “Oh, really? What name?" he asks "Maybe I can help.”

June looks up innocently. “I can’t tell you that, Daddy. She’s a secret admirer.”

"I beg your pardon. A thousand apologies."

Richie stands back with a chuckle and lets her work out her choice between some cards with ponies on them and another box that promises holographic stickers. Predictably, the latter wins out.

“Thirty two! You’re gonna have ten extra,” he tells June. “Can I have one? I’d like to give a valentine to someone.”

“Me?” June grins, hugging him around the middle and turning up her cute little face.

“Nope.” Richie boops her nose and realigns her glasses. _“You’re_ going to get something extra nice from Hallmark.”

“Then who?!”

“I wouldn’t be a very good secret admirer if I told you that, now would I?” Richie says mysteriously. He gets their cart rolling again. “Now! Let’s go get all the melty stuff.”

“Ice cream?” June hopes.

“After we pick out three dinner vegetables,” Richie promises.

  
  
-  
  
  


Richie gets very rudely awakened by a ringing phone one morning, and the color of the bush outside his window is a pretty good clue as to why. He fulfills his obligations to the school phone tree, cancels with an appointment in the city, then checks the weather channel while lacing up his boots. They got dumped on overnight, but it should just be flurries this morning. Before he loses his dialing dexterity to a double layer of gloves, he gives Eddie a call too, on a whim.

“Good morning? Edward Kaspbrak speaking-”

“Hello? This the Nassau Coliseum? I’m cancelling my subscription to your ice machine!”

Eddie laughs. “Morning, darling.”

“Good muh-muh-muh-morning, my sweet,” Richie shivers. “Half Hollow’s got a snow day, what about you?”

“Oh, definitely. Our superintendent is from Arizona.”

“I think ours is half polar bear, but for once he’s listening to the koala side.”

Eddie hums, on the other end. “I might still have rehearsal if the roads are clear by two o’clock, but...”

“My favorite of your parts!”

“Pssh! Liar.”

“Your left thigh?” Richie guesses. No response. “Your inner elbows. Your bellybutton? Hey! Why don’t we get together and you can let me figure it out!”

Eddie sighs a laugh. “I could be convinced to dig out my car for you and June.”

This time Richie psshaws him. “You won’t need to. We’ll come rescue you. Well, _I’ll_ rescue you and June will make snow angels, but by the end you will have been saved,” he swears.

A gentle moan. “I knew I liked you.”

“I like you, too.”

By the time Richie is done shoveling his own driveway, the snow has stopped falling and the plows are due to come around. If he had to, he’d put June on her sled and snowshoe them out to Commack, but the roads are good enough for someone who got their driver’s license in a Maine winter. They arrive to Eddie’s slowly but surely, where a warm welcome awaits.

“We’re heeeere!” June proclaims, brandishing her little helper shovel. She insisted.

“That’s what she eats her frosted flakes with.” Richie pulls up her hood for the fifteenth time. 

Eddie starts pulling on his coat to come join them outside. “Wow, June! You’re gonna shovel me out all on your own?”

She turns her whole body to look back the way she came, their two pairs of prints in the yard, indistinguishable from the driveway. “Well, maybe you guys can help _a little._ I didn’t do ours! I was still asleep!”

Richie curls his shovel like a dumbbell. “Ooph! Yeah, I’m already warmed up and ready to go- _fall in a snowbank!”_

Eddie watches him with a smirk. “Aw, I bet you’ll have someone to help you next winter.”

“I bet I will," Richie grins over June's oblivious head.

With that, they get down to it. If it takes just as long for two adults as for one, surely June’s snowball ambush is not the reason. They meant to shovel that slowly, to conserve their strength! And to lose the fight so horribly!

With alliances changing so rapidly, they end their morning in a grim heap. If anything, it more closely resembles an snow octopus than an angel. Limbs sprawled, snow trampled, and ice crusted to the gaps between boots and socks and jeans.

“Who else wants to go in for lunch?” Eddie huffs, head tucked in Richie’s right armpit.

“Me!” June cries from his left. “I’m starvin’.”

“If you could just get one of those nice doggies with the little barrel to bring me roadside service that’d be great,” says Richie.

Eddie rolls towards him and pats his burning chest. “Poor thing.”

Rabid with hunger, June hops to all fours. She paws on Richie, arf arfing and gently pummeling him with her head.

“Alright, alright! I’m coming,” Richie relents. “Just as long as we get some protein in this pup.”

Eddie gets to his feet first, brushes himself down, then offers Richie a hand up. “How about Grammy Mags’ famous tuna noodle?”

June gasps. She’s always fascinated by Eddie’s access to ancient family knowledge. “You know about that?”

“Mhmm.” Eddie helps June up, too, and fixes her hood, yet again. “You’ll have to let me know if mine’s up to snuff.”

Within a few short minutes, they’re in the house and changed into some dry clothes. It’s their first time at Eddie’s, so he shows them into his living room, full of the sort of luxuries as-yet childless people have. His entertainment cabinet has glass doors, the sole house plant is a cactus, and the couch is draped with a cashmere blanket- dry clean only, undoubtedly. 

“Pretty swanky, Spaghetti Man.”

“Pretty swanky,” June parrots, petting the blanket.

“You like that?” Eddie chuckles. He takes the blanket and capes it around her little shoulders. “Let’s get you warmed up.”

June cozies it up around her face. “This is sooo fancy,” she says. “Dad, we should get blankets like this at our house!”

“Hmm. Maybe someday Fish!”

Richie inspects the library, just as impressed. The room is lined with collector books from the Met opera, VHS tapes, and enough records to put his own considerable collection to shame.

“That shelf is all musicals,” says Eddie, steering June over by the shoulders. Some are in original boxes, some recorded off the TV with Eddie’s neat scrawl noting the title, the headlining star, and the year of origin. “If you liked _Little Mermaid,_ there’s more just like it. Whoosits and whatsits galore,” Eddie notes, rather brilliantly.

“Wow!” June hops in excitement, happier than an ever after.

Richie slings an arm around his two true loves, and in doing so is immediately thawed out. Who cares how his muscles are screaming? Is it ten degrees below freezing? What a lovely day.

“June, why don’t you pick a movie for after lunch?” he says. "We'll cuddle up here for awhile."

“Okay!” June plops down on the floor in a puddle of blanket and deliberation.

“As for you,” Richie turns to Eddie with a glint in his eye. “Would you like my assistance boiling that water?”

Eddie rolls his eyes at him, but gives Richie a pull around the waist. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Tuna noodle isn’t too strenuous a recipe. Just enough secret ingredients to wow June, but lazy enough to allow for a little monkey business. As sous chef, Richie makes it his personal responsibility to warm Eddie up from their wintery morning. He wraps at Eddie’s back while he mixes and kisses his neck and whispers plans for their future together, when every day can be like this.

“What do you think about us moving the TV and my old living room set down to the basement?”

“And keep my couch upstairs?”

“With the music,” Richie nods, rubbing his nose in Eddie’s hair. He’s still a little sweaty and damp from shoveling and it’s _divine._ “June’s getting older. Eventually she’ll want someplace to hang out with her friends and be loud and ignore us.”

Eddie hums agreement. “And we could put my little TV in the bedroom, if you’re not opposed.”

“Not as long as you’re there, too.”

Eddie clicks off the burner and turns around in Richie’s arms. “That’s the whole idea,” he smiles.

“Yes indeedy, my sweetie,” Richie grins back. 

After one more kiss, they get out some bowls and forks and call June in for lunch. Richie receives her movie pick and unravels her from her cape, for now.

“Mmm! _The Music Man._ And what brought you to this fine selection, Ms. Tozier?”

June licks her chops at the sight of incoming grub. “It was the one with my favorite dress on the front!”

“Can’t argue with that,” says Richie. He takes a seat at the little kitchen table and pours June and himself some hot chocolate from a saucepan. “Any for you, Spaghetti m’dear?”

“Just a splash.” Eddie comes around and scoops June a steamy bowlful of cheesy delight. “There you go, you little noodle.”

 _“Juna Noodle a la Kaspbrak,”_ Richie announces auspiciously.

“Mmm!” She crams down spoonful after spoonful. A highly flattering verdict. Only when June pauses to get a sip of cocoa does she not have her mouth too full to speak. “So- if Eddie is Spaghetti, and _I’m_ Noodle... What are you?” she asks.

Richie bats his eyelashes at her charmingly. “A pasta lover?”

Eddie leans over to June and whispers a comeback in her ear.

“You’re so _fusilli,_ Dad,” June snickers.

“Hey!” He points a fork at her. “Don’t get _saucy_ with me.”

  
  
-  
  
  


Even for a professional talker, it’s impossible to get a word in edgewise with two six year olds in your back seat. Melissa’s new dress this, June’s scrunchie that, Play-doh, princess, ballerina, Rainbow Brite, _did they do square dance in your gym class yet?_ Eventually they get singing, so Richie doesn’t even have to turn on the radio to blow out his ear drums! Bet you even Iron Maiden’s bus driver doesn’t get heat like this.

After they drop Melissa off, June is ready to debrief. She braces her feet against the back of the passenger seat and laces her fingers behind her head like a Wall Street broker kicking his heels up on the desk.

“Whatta day!”

“Oh yeah?” Richie chuckles. “What was the drama with the Barbies I kept hearing?”

June takes a deep breath. _“Well!_ Melissa was Teresa and I was Barbie and we were playing Wedding but I don’t have any Ken dolls, because _they don’t even have any hair-”_

“Yeah,” shrugs Richie. “What’s the point!?”

“Right! So we had to do auditions for Kens, but then the best one was Mickey Mouse-”

Richie nods, following along “He’s already got a suit and bow tie, sure.”

“-So Barbie and Teresa had to take turns marrying Mickey _and_ being the flower girl, and making the dresses and singing, and it made Barbie _so_ tired she took a nap and _missed her own wedding!”_ June exclaims.

“Heavens to horsefeathers! She’s really burning the candle at both ends, that Barbie,” Richie tsks. “I’ve always said that. An astronaut and a teacher _and_ a doctor? She’s been overdue for a nervous breakdown.”

“There was a search party!” June giggles. “Mickey had to marry a pony!”

“Wait, why didn’t Barbie marry a pony to begin with?”

“They can’t, they’re enemies,” June says, gravely.

Richie drums the steering wheel. “Well if you can’t be with the one ya love, Mickey, _love the one ya with! Love the one ya with! Do do do do do do dooo!”_

June busts out in a laugh so hard her feet slide down to the floor again. “We should have had _you_ sing at the search party, Dad!” she sighs in amusement.

He _can’t_ break it to her that a search party isn’t a cake and streamers kind of shindig, right? That would be unforgivable. It does feel like a good moment for a bit of honest heart-to-heart, though. Richie takes a right where he usually takes a left, to extend their drive a few extra blocks.

“You should invite me to Barbie’s next wedding, they sound like a real scream.” Richie glances at June in the rear view mirror. He takes a breath. “You know, If I ever have a wedding, I’ll make sure you’re there, so it’s lots of fun.”

June tilts her head. “You'd want to play Wedding with us?”

“Sure. Sometimes I think about getting married in real life, too,” Richie says lightly. “I know, I know, _you_ got it made in the shade with Daddy, you don’t need nobody else- but sometimes parents get lonesome. They wanna have someone to pay for dinner dates, and to dance with, and all that kissing stuff.”

“Oh. Well _I’m_ not gonna pay for dinner,” June agrees. “Don’t even get me _started_ on the disgusting kissy stuff.”

Richie snorts. “Right! That’s the parents’ job. The kid’s job is just to sit back and get twice as many chances to win Crazy Eights!”

So far, she’s not outright rejecting the prospect. That’s good. Richie’s trying not to make it too threatening, too sudden. _Sometimes._ Sometimes he thinks it would be nice. _Don’t you?_ He shouldn’t put too fine a point on it all at once, but this is encouraging.

“You must have friends whose moms and dads married someone new, right?”

“Yeah.” June tries to think of an example. “Whitney’s mom got married. She made Whitney a dress with all these ribbons, and flowers, and a poofy skirt that she brought to Show and Tell.”

“Ah, interesting!” Richie says, checking the mirror again. “I wonder if I know anyone who’d look good in a poofy dress.”

June beams in the backseat.

-

As badly as Richie wants to move Eddie in and have everyone under one roof, it is nice to have a little hideaway in the meanwhile. Thanks to Mags, they manage to have a pre-cohabitation overnight at Eddie’s, without worrying about getting him out the door at a respectable hour, or getting dressed. They can put on music and start getting frisky in the kitchen. They can take a long shower together and stumble naked through the hall. Eddie can take his time teasing Richie. He can make him shake and shout into the pillows, and then do it all over again in the morning.

“No, no, don’t pull the blankets down,” Richie says, even though they’re really getting into it, petting and thrusting, spooned together.

Eddie chuckles a kiss between his shoulders. “Shy all the sudden?” He gives Richie another hard snap of his hips.

“ _Unh._ I just want to ruin as many of your sheets as possible,” Richie grins. He grins even harder when Eddie runs his palm all the way down his front and gets a hold of his cock, giving him a simultaneous pump inside and out. “Ahh ah...”

“Can’t wait, _hhn,_ until we live together and I can make that _your_ problem.”

“Yeah, _oh God, yeah._ Bend me over the washing machine,” Richie pants. _“Ah!_ Two birds, one stone.” 

Eddie takes that as an immediate request, tipping them over from their sides. He straddles Richie and pulls the covers further up over their heads like a tent.

“I know what you want, darling,” he says, slowly pushing back in and blanketing himself to Richie’s back. “Nothing but me.”

Richie gasps into the pillows. “Tha-that’s it, honey.”

Just them, block out everything else. Muffle the sound, trap the heat, make the light that manages to shine through orange, with nothing to bounce off of but their bodies. Sweat rolls down from one to the other, making them melt together. The longer Eddie goes, the lower Richie sinks, until he’s sandwiched to the bed. Their fists are locked together and he can barely move, barely do anything but feel how entirely Eddie wants him. He can’t think anything but _Eddie! Richie! Eddie! Darling, oh! Harder! Yes! Almost there! Yes! Ohgodyes!_

After they finish they twist together under the covers, kissing and giggling through the rush.

“So this is my forties, huh?”

“Did you have a good birthday?” Eddie asks, smiling up at him.

Richie shimmies his hips, making their sticky bodies prickle and tack. “Got what I wanted- _twice,”_ he says. “A fantastic birthday. I should get birthday’ed once a month, whaddaya think?”

“I think you might be too old for me by the time I catch up with you,” Eddie laughs. He reaches up to stroke a deep line on Richie’s face, then follows it with a kiss.

“Mmm. _Or-”_ Richie bobbles his head and smacks his gums, “-It'll be a nice preview of being ooold and gray together," he croaks.

“Speak for yourself. I’m going to dye my hair,” Eddie smirks.

Richie holds up a hand in oath. “I’ll never tell, I swear.”

“And I’ll still love you then, old man,” says Eddie. He slips his palm against Richie’s and laces their fingers together. _“I swear.”_

In the midst of Richie's loud, boisterous life, its so soothing to be part of such a sure thing. Their love always has been, always _will be._

Hmm, that’s a good idea for a follow up to the watch!

Richie kisses Eddie’s fingers. “What would you think about us having a little ceremony before you move in?” he asks. “Doesn’t have to be anything crazy, if you don’t want! No papers, no pomp. A backyard wedding, and then I carry you across the threshold... Just Mags and June and _rings?”_

Eddie raises an eyebrow. “Well, I was expecting a key ring, at least.”

“Give you keys,” Richie promises, rushing him with a kiss. “Give you flowers. Give you my home. And my baby to love. And my whole bathroom counter for all your vain little doodads,” he keeps kissing. _“Marry me, marry me, marry me.”_

Eddie glows under all this affection, all these promises in return for his own constant one. The morning sun, rising just for Richie. “Yes, of course!” he laughs.

“Yeah?” He can’t help it, looking directly at Eddie. Richie tears up. “Oh, honey!”

“Richie, my darling.” Eddie hugs him tight. “You can go _a little_ crazy with the wedding, you know.”

“Great,” Richie sighs into his chest, relieved. “Because I already implied a poofy dress to June. And I want cake. And pictures. And if you think we’re not gonna have a first dance out on the porch with all the Christmas lights strung up outta season, you’re out of your mind!”

Eddie’s fingers tiptoe at his back in a little waltz. “Maybe I’ll go crazy too, and make you my emergency contact,” he chuckles.

  
  
-  
  
  


Usually an impending Eddie visit puts a spring in June’s step, but not today. When the doorbell rings, she’s prone on the couch with her head stuck under a pillow. Not a twitch. Richie’s too worried they’re going to have to call the whole night off to appreciate their moment of privacy at the door.

“Hey, Eddie.” He bumps a lackluster kiss to his cheek. “Come on in.”

Eddie smiles hopefully, glancing around the kitchen for June to come bounding through from the living room, or out from under the table and tackle his legs. “Hi! Are you guys ready to go?”

“Uhh,” Richie scratches his head. “Not exactly. Sorry I didn’t catch you before you left. You can stick around for a bit! But I don’t think June’s up for a restaurant tonight.”

A real shame, when Eddie made them a reservation at a fondue place. He’s in peak Looking Pretty by Candlelight form tonight, and Richie would love nothing more than to dunk his own head in a bowl of chocolate, right about now. 

“What’s wrong?” Eddie asks.

Richie gestures towards the living room. “June left her glasses on the bus this morning-”

“I didn’t do it _on purpose,”_ June grumps from afar.

“I know, Fishie,” Richie says a little louder. He turns back to Eddie. “Not having her glasses gave her a headache at school, which I didn’t realize until _after_ I tried to make it a talking point about responsibility for our belongings... Never let anyone tell you Richie Tozier has perfect timing.”

“Mmm, I see.” Eddie reaches out and gives his arm a squeeze. “Mind if I-?”

 _Be my guest,_ Richie gestures. Soon enough Eddie will have to handle some of June’s mishaps, after all. There will be other lost belongings, and bad grades, and outgrown favorite sneakers. A deepening of the parental bench is bound to come in handy now and again. 

They step into the living room, where June still hasn’t moved a miserable muscle. Richie stands back while Eddie goes and kneels at the end of the couch. He gently lifts a corner of the pillow and smiles as June turns her head in begrudging acknowledgement.

“Hi, Noodle. Sorry to hear you’re feeling crummy.”

June whimpers into the cushions. “It’s not fair! It’s not my fault it's too foggy in the morning! When I can’t put my glasses on until I get to school I forget.”

“It’s tough when your routines get fouled up,” Eddie frowns. “Did Dad already give you something to help your headache?”

“Motrin,” June pouts. “It was _so_ gross and my head _still hurts.”_

Eddie pets her hair back off her face. “I bet that and some supper will have you feeling better soon,” he assures her.

“M’not hungry.”

“I feel that way too when I have a headache. Wanna know my secret trick?”

June makes an uncertain noise.

Eddie stands back up. “All you have to do is roll on your back. I’ll be back in a minute.” He looks at Richie expectantly. “Would you go grab a pair of your dress socks?” he asks, crossing to the kitchen.

When Richie returns with them, Eddie is helping himself to the pantry. He scoops several cups of rice into one of the socks, ties off the end, and then puts it in the microwave.

“Where do you come up with this stuff?” Richie wonders. He leans against the counter beside him, admiring.

Eddie waits for the microwave to run, his mouth in a flat line. “Well, you know how my mother was. I’ve spent a lot of time undoing the instinct to fix everything with a pill.”

“You’re incredible.” Richie leans to give him a quick kiss.

They return to the living room, and June. Eddie lays the warm, weighted bag over her eyes and takes a seat next to her, where he can smooth her hair back off her forehead.

“That’s a relief, isn’t it?” he says softly.

June nods and relaxes.

“Hey, that’s good! Maybe we can still make our reservation,” says Richie, checking his watch.

Eddie beckons him closer. “It’ll still be there another night. How about instead of going out, I pick something up?”

“Noo,” June whimpers, clutching for Eddie’s hand on her brow. “Don’t go.”

Richie’s heart squeezes. “Okay,” he laughs. “How about _I_ go pick something up. I’m thinkin’ Liam’s. Anything you want in particular, Spaghetti Man?” He cups Eddie’s cheek before going off to find his coat.

“I’ll have the same as you,” he smiles up at him.

Of course. That is their promise going forward, isn’t it?

Richie leaves the two of them on the couch, curled up and comforted. They’re already conspiring about another time they could go to The Melting Pot, after Eddie’s show finishes it’s run. In a week or two. Not so long from now, he tells her. He’ll have more nights free to come by. June lays her head in his lap, satisfied with that answer.

Yeah... Some time soon, when she’s feeling better and the day hasn’t been an ordeal, Richie thinks.

  
  
-  
  
  


Pink, red, and orange blooms parade past Richie while he scoops ice cream. Eddie clips the end of each flower at his kitchen sink and then hands it June to ferry to the vase on the table.

“What's it called again?” she asks.

Eddie chuckles. “ _Ranunculus.”_

“Runkle us.” But June frowns. That’s not right.

“Run, Uncle Klaus?” Richie suggests.

“Rumpled clothes,” says Eddie, throwing a wink over his shoulder.

Richie winks back. “Why, you rugged cuss!” he twangs.

Well, if there are no rules at all...

 _“Ronkonkoma!”_ June declares.

Eddie turns around with the last flower in his hands, clipped much shorter than all the rest. “This one’s for you,” he says. He twirls his finger at June to turn around so he can put it in her hair. “Beautiful. Did Daddy pick these flowers so that they’d match you?”

June activates her best Shirley Temple, clasping her hands under her chin. “We picked them together!” she tells him.

“See, I knew your sense of style was present. I should have you costume for me, sometime.”

If June’s eyes went any wider, she’d be a newly discovered marsupial on the front of _National Geographic._

“Was that your favorite part of the show, Juna Fish?” asks Richie.

“Well, the fairy tale dresses were _gorgeous,”_ she says luxuriantly. “But I think my favorite part was the witch. She was so scary she kept making Daddy jump!”

Richie gasps. “Did not!”

“Did too!” June insists, hopping into her seat at the table.

Eddie laughs and sinks into the seat next to her. “I was going to ask if you wanted to stay awhile and watch _Quantum Leap,_ but if it’s _too scary...”_

“Ahh, I wish,” Richie groans. “I gotta get this pumpkin home before she turns into a princess.” He watches June dig into her ice cream, amazed that she’s still upright, seeing as it’s nearly two hours past her bedtime. It might have made more sense to take her to the matinee, but then Eddie wouldn’t have had much time to hang out with them afterwards, before the evening performance. “We’re all gettin’ sleepy,” he yawns. “Unless you’re okay to drive us home, June?”

She looks up at him, spoon stuck in her mouth in shock.

“That’s all right,” says Eddie. His dark eyes hold on Richie, clearly longing for the future when they never have to say goodnight. “I’m just being greedy.”

“Maybe Grammy can pick us up, if we’re too sleepy?” June suggests.

Richie laughs at the thought of her having to carry them both to the car. But alas, Mags probably likes her hernias unpopped, so no dice.

“Another time, Fish. We’re saying goodbye after ice cream.”

“How is Mags?” Eddie asks. “I haven’t caught her in a while.”

“She liked that book you recommended," Richie reports. "But don’t think that means you’re gonna trick me into doing extra credit homework, too!”

Eddie narrows his eyes. “You _are_ homework.”

“Nyeh!” Richie sticks out his tongue at him faster than June can see his bad table manners.

Eddie shakes his head, a tiny smile betraying his scowl. “I'll have to tell her how fresh you are next week, I suppose.”

“Actually, she’s going up to Rhonda’s! She’s all a twitter about it. I kinda think she’s got a beau in Maine.”

June touches the flower in her hair, thinking of the other kind of bow. “Grammy’s hair is too short.”

“Spelled B-E-A-U. It’s an old fashioned way to say boyfriend,” Richie clarifies.

“Ohhh!” But then June promptly falls back out of interest in adult talk.

Eddie considers Richie’s suspicion, spooning more ice cream and then licking his lip. “She is on the phone a lot...”

“Yeah, I think because she knows, uh,” Richie gestures vaguely between the two of them, “-she’s thinking about getting out there, herself. “She started wearing earrings again, everyday,” he adds as a note. 

“Sounds like you’ve got a new mystery, Derry Boy,” Eddie smirks.

June squints, clinking her spoon at the soupy bottom of her bowl. “If Grammy gets a boyfriend does that mean he's my grandpa?”

 _“Hmm,”_ says Richie, feeling like this is coffee ice cream, suddenly. “Eddie, do you have any thoughts pertaining to such a hypothetical situation?” he asks pointedly.

Eddie, on the other hand, goes all soft around the edges. His fingers patter on the tabletop, for a moment unsure if he should touch June’s little hand, or not. _Yes._ He does. “I’m sure you’d be welcome to call him your Grandpa, if you wanted, June,” he says. _“Anyone_ would feel very special that you considered him family."

June laughs to herself, amazed. What a wide world, with a new lesson everyday! “I didn’t know that grandmas could have boyfriends,” she admits.

“Don't you watch _Who’s The Boss?”_ Richie teases. 

Then June drops her spoon with a clatter, an idea forming. “Eddie, do _you_ have a girlfriend?”

He startles a little, and grips the edge of the table lightly. “Oh. No, I don’t...”

Well, he bailed Richie out on the last question, which was already more than he bargained for at 10 PM, Richie owes him, right? And it’s about time they addressed this subject, so they can clear the way for the Big One.

"Eddie doesn’t have a girlfriend, because he has a boyfriend,” Richie says, cool as a cucumber on the chopping block in a Greek restaurant. “Some people would rather be two boyfriends, or two girlfriends, than a boyfriend and girlfriend.”

“Huh.” She blinks, at her bowl, at Eddie, and the vase full of flowers. “I guess you must _really_ get along then, because you’re both boys. You like all the same stuff!”

It looks like this might be the most pleasant version of this revelation Eddie’s ever had. At her reaction, he leans his chin into one hand and smiles at June, sidelong. “That does help,” he snickers, mostly to himself.

They wait a minute for June to perhaps take this abstract information and create a relevant theory, but she just tips up her bowl so she can catch every last drip drop of ice cream, instead. She resurfaces with a chocolate mustache. “I don’t think _I’m_ gonna bother with a boyfriend,” says mini Richie with pigtails, smacking her lips. “I got _a lot_ going on.”

“Oh yeah. You’ve got that scrunchie collection to get on the runway! You’re swamped!” Richie throws his hands up emphatically. “Take a number!”

June giggles and wipes her face with her hand, discovering her stickiness. “Ugh! May I be excused from the table?”

Richie sighs. That’s good enough for tonight. It’s late, they already have a half hour drive home. “Yeah, go ahead,” he tells June, getting up from his seat himself so he can clear their bowls. “Get your coat when you get out.”

“Aww!”

He shovels her from out of his path to the sink. “I know, but still. Go wash your face, Slimey the worm!”

After she mopes off, Eddie meets him at the counter with an expectant look. “Well, that was...”

"Good?"

"Good," Eddie agrees. He chuckles and slips his arms around Richie’s waist. “Maybe we should have cooked up a boyfriend for Mags weeks ago.”

Richie kisses his forehead and then cuddles his cheek to Eddie’s. “I think she’s ready. Next Sunday. We’ll go out for some fun, we’ll do a nice dinner at home... Everybody’s off from school for Spring Recess...”

“Should I pack a bag for an overnight? Or five?”

“Passport too, in case you decide to flee the country instead,” Richie teases.

Eddie turns to kiss him and shut him up, and then they just stand there, arms wrapped around each other until the faucet goes off in the bathroom.

“Tell your boyfriend I said hi,” Richie grins into Eddie’s temple. 

He laughs. “I'll give him a call tomorrow after strike.”

  
  
-  
  
  


When Richie was in his twenties, prepping for a Saturday night in the city was a piece of cake. Blow out his hair while downing a few shots, check that his wallet has enough cash and/or quaaludes to get around, and _go._ Nowadays it’s like hosting the grand opening of a bakery during a kitchen fire. He spent a month building up good will with Sharon and Jeff so that June could sleep over with Melissa. He drove to and from all the playdates, he served all the broccoli, and he gave up his chiropractor appointment when Jeff had a fender bender. He buys an extra comb and toothbrush in case June forgets either. He runs the laundry twice because somehow the first load only had one pair of pajamas in it, and he should send her with two, on the off chance of an accident. She needs layering options in case the weather takes a dip. He’s gotta write out a list of phone numbers; the restaurant in the city where he’s having his meeting, Mags at Rhonda’s for long distance emotional support, June’s pediatrician, their family lawyer, and this Eddie fella that Sharon and Jeff heard about a lot in passing, who is authorized to pick her up. Just in case!

June watches Richie fold clothes into her napsack with mixed emotions. “Don’t you need to pack pajamas, too?”

“Nah, I’m not staying in the city all night, just getting home very very late.”

“Won’t you be lonely here all alone?” she asks.

She’s concerned about that now. Granted this is only her second sleepover, and the first time Mags was still in town, but last time Daddy's lonelieness hadn’t crossed her mind.

Richie zips her bag and takes a seat on her bed, squishing several innocent stuffed animals. “Of course I’m gonna miss you Fishie, but one night is okay,” he smiles. “I’ll see you in the morning, and then we’re gonna have a _very_ special day together.”

This is the first she’s hearing about this. June’s eyebrows fly up over her glasses. “Are we going to the beach?”

“The beach!?” Richie pulls a face and wobbles like his head just rang a giant bell. “It’s been sixty degrees two days in a row and you’re ready to catch a wave, huh?”

“A lot of my class are going to the beach,” June shrugs.

“Not in New York, they’re not- the water’s still freezing here! They’re probably skippin’ town.”

“We can skip town!”

Richie hums. “Well, you can if you want to, but I bet when you find out what’s happening here during break you’re gonna wanna stay home.”

Now her wheels are really turning. June looks around the room as if for clues. Her eyes land on the pile of stuffed animals beside him and she catapults herself at the bed, raising a stuffed cat over her head with a shriek.

_“Are we getting a kitty!?”_

Visions of miniature Buttercups tapdance through Richie’s mind. He can’t promise her ‘something just as cuddly’ without reinforcing her guesswork, now can he?

“You know what?” He uses one of June’s bounces to launch himself to his feet. “That’s something we should discuss during vacation...”

With that he raises his finger to his lips in secrecy and wanders away to figure out what the heck he’s wearing this evening, other than his entire nervous system, inside out. He is curious what the guy who made a twerp like Steve Guttenberg into a star could do for him, but this evening could not have landed at a more scatterbrained moment. _Hey!_ You know what? It’s warm enough- this could be a sockless occasion. One less thing to decide is a relief, even as miniscule a choice as hosiery color. Dontcha know? He’s gotta get back to obsessing about tomorrow, ASAP!

So _of course,_ the phone rings while Richie’s got his hands full of shaving cream. He slops as much of it into the sink as he can and grabs a towel. 

“‘Ello ‘ello? Richie here,” he answers.

“Hi, Richie- it’s Sharon.”

Oh _no._

“Hey! Everything on track today? Thanks again, Sharon!” he chirps, refusing to acknowledge the down note in her tone.

“I’m sorry to do this to you,” she sighs.

Then don’t!

“-But Melissa’s been out of it all morning and we were hoping it was just allergies, but now she’s running a fever. I’m afraid we’re going to have to cancel on tonight.”

“Aghh,” Richie groans. “Poor kid. I understand.”

“Would you like the number of my sitter?” Sharon offers. “I know you have plans in the city...”

“Jeanette, right? I’ve got her number.” Richie thumbs at the list of emergency contacts he already wrote up, on top of his phone book. “Thanks Shar. Listen, I gotta figure out what I can do about tonight in a jiff, but tell Melissa we hope she feels better soon!”

“Will do,” she says good-naturedly. “We’ll figure out a make up date for the girls some other time. Bye Rich!”

“Adios!”

And as soon as Richie hangs up, he picks back up again and dials. As far as he can see, he now has two options and Eddie is both of them.

“Hello?”

“Hey! Eddie! Remember how you were gonna make a lobster pot full of coffee and get all your grading done today?”

Eddie makes a preemptively futile noise. “I love a fresh spin on Caesar’s memento mori as much as the next drama teacher, but why do you ask?”

“Melissa and Co. called out sick. Either I’m gonna cancel on Levinson, and swing by to bring you dinner lest you _starve_ yourself, orrrr-”

“Or you're wondering if I can watch her tonight?” Eddie fills in.

Richie shouldn’t be asking. His plans aren’t more important than Eddie’s. “I should just cancel,” he says, spinning around to check the clock on the wall behind him. Ned should be in the air, right now. _Damn._

“Richie,” Eddie says firmly, “I can flesh out a rubric on your couch as miserably as on mine.”

“It’ll take you longer, with June,” Richie points out.

“So? Maybe I’ll have to find a few hours later in the week to get it done. At least I’ll be able to crawl into bed with you after.”

Richie groans. “You were supposed to seduce me into the irresponsible choice, you know.”

“Go to your dinner,” Eddie chuckles. “Come home, tell me everything you said, and then I’ll tell you how much funnier you _could_ have said it.”

The man of Richie’s dreams. He wraps the phone cord around his finger. “I am madly, passionately, _deeply..._ still not dressed yet,” he tells him.

And June has just popped into the kitchen, of course.

“Wear that pink tie on something dark,” Eddie says. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Thanks buddy.”

“Bye darling.”

Richie hangs the phone back on the wall. “And how may I help you, madam?” he inquires, turning to June.

“Daddy, I need to reschedule!” she declares. She’s got her napsack strapped on but no socks or shoes, just rainbow painted piggies wigglin’. “If we’re going to get a kitty, I have to put away all the puppies in my room and practice taking showers instead of baths,” she explains.

Well, kid. Daddy’s one step ahead of ya.

  
  
-  
  
  


Ned thinks the dinner went well, but he’s biased, seeing as he’s the one who’s been dying to get Richie to sit down with a Hollywood director again. Sitcoms and commercials and voice work are all well and good, but have you _seen_ what people can rake in on the backend of the box office?

“I’m not ready for something like this right now,” Richie says, when they confab on the sidewalk afterward. “Not this year. I’m busy at home.”

“C’mon!” says Ned. “It’s time for you to come outta hibernation!”

“Not sure I’d call night shoots and holing up on location for most of the summer the opposite,” Richie points out.

Ned holds his arms wide, like the whole world’s at his disposal. “Your kid’s going to school, now. Doesn’t need you as much. You’re _here_ aren’t ya?”

Richie sees red. June’s hair red. Balloons at the park red. Heart shaped collar tags on kittens. 

“I don’t need to be,” he huffs. “I already got work! And June might not need me every minute of the day, but she _wants_ me, and that’s not gonna last forever.”

“Bring ‘er with you,” Ned shrugs. “Get a nanny on set. You got the money!”

 _“Perfect,”_ Richie growls. “Then, when I make that backend you’re all about, I can pawn her off on a boarding school! And then an apartment in Paris! And a private jet she can fly home on to sprinkle my estranged ashes!” Richie flails as he shouts, and even the hardened New Yorker passersby give him a wide berth. 

“I don’t know what you got against doing a movie when you’re such a drama queen,” says Ned, shaking his head. He grabs Richie’s elbow and hauls him to the curb, lowering his voice. “Look, Rich. I’m just sayin’- it’s not every day you get an offer from an Oscar winner.”

“Not every day a kid’s parent can put them first, either. I’m lucky to have the choice, but it really isn’t one.” Richie prompts a hand shake. “Not this summer, Ned.”

When Ned leaves, Richie worries he’ll regret it in the cab, but he doesn’t. Not on the train, either, or in the car. Definitely not _ever,_ when he unlocks the kitchen door and Eddie is spread out on the table with all his papers. He’s got a bracelet from June around his wrist with his watch as he pens a note in the margins of an essay. As soon as he finishes his thought he looks up with a smile.

“Hello love.”

“Hi honeybun,” Richie leans to kiss him. “Mmm, you stayed up,” he nuzzles in his neck. “Wasn’t sure if I’d find you passed out on the floor. She really takes it outta ya, one on one.”

Eddie laughs and gives Richie's head a good scratch. “Well. Don’t forget, I am a few years younger than you, old man.”

“Whippersnapper!” Richie nips at him and then stands up again. “She go down all right? I’m just gonna duck in...”

“Of course!”

Before he leaves the kitchen, Richie spins back around. “Wait, she didn’t like your Ralph S. Mouse voice better than mine, did she?”

“I’m not at liberty to disclose that,” Eddie says, ducking his head with a bitten off grin.

Richie sneaks down the hall and into June’s room. The nightlight shines just bright enough to distinguish the careful braids Eddie put in her hair and Skippy’s ears poking up past her shoulder. She wakes when he sits beside her and rolls toward him with a murmur.

“Shh, Fishie.” Richie pets her cheek. “I’m home. Did you have a good time with Eddie?”

She nods and rubs her eyes. “He didn’t already go home, did he?”

“Not yet,” Richie whispers. “Do you want him to stay?”

June’s sleepy brow lifts. “Please?”

Richie lets out a soft laugh. He’d have more trouble kicking Eddie out, really. “You know, it means a lot to me that you like him so much," he tells her. "We’ll see you tomorrow, Fishie girl. Love you," he kisses her head.

 _“Luff you,”_ she muffles, already tipping back over.

After he slips back out, Richie heads into his room to pull off his shoes and tie. He doesn’t want to rush Eddie in the middle of work he already distracted him from, but Eddie has his own mind, after all. He comes in while Richie is sitting at the foot of the bed with the baskets, sorting laundry for tomorrow.

“You gonna tuck me in, too?” Richie grins. “You got the taste for it now. Next thing you know, you’ll be roving through June’s baby dolls for a fix. Making little sleeping bags for the utensils outta napkins, unable to control your fatherly instinct.”

Eddie flops into the bed sideways, arms akimbo. “I did leave the dishes for you,” he laughs, not willing to be idolized too quickly.

“That’s totally fair,” Richie chuckles. He catches one of Eddie’s hands for a kiss. “You're just looking to settle the babysitting bill and then you’re on your way, huh?”

One of Eddie’s knees nudges him in the back. “Cough it up.”

“I already took off my pants with my wallet, I don’t know what you want from me!”

“I’m sure we can work something out.”

Richie fishes out the last two dark articles from the basket then shoves everything out of the way. He doesn’t care that June may get up to use the bathroom, or that Eddie left the door ajar. He climbs over him and kisses him in what is soon-to-be _their_ bed and thanks him for coming tonight, thanks him for staying, for being ready, for wanting to be everything Richie needed him to be, and then being it.

“I know we planned on dinner tomorrow, but-”

“Breakfast?” Eddie looks up at him with an infectious smile. “Sure, the sooner the better.”

“Good, cause I can’t wait,” Richie says.

“I don’t think June can either. Did you know she thinks we’re getting a cat?”

Richie swoops on Eddie and inhales a kiss from his lips. _“God,_ I thought it made me lightheaded when you call me Daddy to June. Say a collective ‘we’ again.”

 _“We_ can talk about a cat,” Eddie tells him, breathily. _“We_ can do anything _we_ like.”

Richie swoons.

  
  
-  
  
  


While it is wonderful thing to wake up next to Eddie, Richie didn’t exactly intend to do it every hour, all night. Once the sun is flirting with the idea of crossing the horizon, forget it. It’s impossible to stay asleep. He’s too anxious. He’s gonna make pancakes either until everyone’s up, or they run out of ingredients. They freeze pretty good, anyway.

Eddie floats in shortly after the third, looking expertly equipped to man the smiley face production. “I’m about to change your whole world,” he smirks, peeling a banana.

 _“Again?”_ Richie gasps.

“Make two little pancakes,” Eddie nods at the pan. Instead of simply chopping the banana into eyes, he slices it lengthwise for bunny ears, and saves the chips for the face and paws. “You should’ve seen the ice cream social they had for _Harvey,”_ he says. “One of my students works at Friendly’s, gave me all sorts of ideas, but I never have chocolate chips on hand.”

“Well, then.” Richie bounces his eyebrows. “Stick around. This is the birthplace of the peanut butter chow mein chip sandwich.”

 _“Whiskers,”_ Eddie realizes, hurrying into the pantry for noodles.

June is fairly certain Christmas has come again. Eddie is still here, there's a pancake surprise, and Daddy even broke out the crazy straws for everybody's juice!

Richie’s straw has a glasses shape to it that he holds in front of his own like a lorgnette. He sits between them and spies on June, making asides to Eddie in a hushed voice. “This one has some beautiful plumage. Look at that. Bedhead sticking up in the front. You can tell the June Loon by her speckles, and the tendency to make a nest of Daddy’s bathrobe.”

June giggles and stirs her own in her glass. “What sort of bird is Eddie?”

Eddie happens to be preening his hair at that moment, making it startlingly obvious. 

“Ooh, he’s a rare Gold Crested Lovebird. Beady eyes. Sharp. Good with the egg.”

“Beady?” Eddie touches the bracelet June made for him last night and gives her a proud look. “What a compliment.”

“Do Dad!” June insists.

Eddie’s sweet smile turns devilish as he trades straws with Richie. “Hmm,” he says, adjusting it back and forth. “Some sort of _odd duck,_ crossed with another bird. I’ll have to hear his call to say for sure. Quick, what’s seventeen times eleven?”

“One eighty seven?”

“Oh,” Eddie perks up in recognition. “The other half is owl. He’s a Wise Quacker!”

June snorts in her cup of juice. “Eddie, you’re even funnier than Daddy sometimes,” she wheezes.

“He is, isn’t he?” Richie admires. “Eddie, you really class up the joint.”

That makes him blush, the lovely thing. “It’s easy to be funny when I’m with you two,” Eddie says, spinning the straw at both ends. Fidgeting. Bursting with the affection he’s ready to share. “I like you so much, I can’t help but try to make you smile,” he tells them.

It feels like the perfect moment. The kitchen is glowing with morning light, June has finished her pancakes, and even if Richie tried, he doesn’t think any other words could come out of his mouth.

He lays his hand on the closest of Eddie’s. “You know- that’s how we say ‘I love you’ in this family, too.”

“Yes, that’s it,” says Eddie, looking back at him. He grips Richie’s fingers where they fold into his. “I love you and June.”

June’s no stranger to sincerity at the breakfast table, but even she senses that something a little out of the ordinary is happening here. Her head tilts expectantly. 

“June,” says Richie, clearing his throat. “Did you know that Eddie and me are boyfriends?”

She snaps upright again. _“Really?!”_

“We’ve been having dinner dates for awhile, now. You’ve been there,” Richie chuckles. “You tell me, doesn’t it seem like we like each other an awful lot?”

Her hands fly up in Tozier trademarked astoundment. “Well yeah, but you never do kissing stuff!”

Like daughter, like father, Richie mirrors her exactly. “Not around you! You think that stuff’s gross and we want you to keep down your dinner,” he laughs. “You’re a growing girl!”

June looks across at Eddie for confirmation. He’s utterly failing to stay on top of a giggle.

“You’ll get used to a little kissing,” he assures her, bubbling. “It just means Daddy and I make each other very happy.”

“Well, I want Daddy to be happy,” June considers. “As long as _he_ doesn’t mind.”

Richie waves a dismissive hand. “I'm impossible to disgust, I'm a comedian." He pushes out from the table and gets out of the chair on to one knee. “C’mere my Fishie girl. Let me tell you something.”

June slides out of her chair and into his arms. “Yeah?” She hugs around his neck.

Richie picks her up and squeezes her. “I love you June, and you’re always going to be my baby. Always going to be the best thing I ever did. But I love Eddie _so_ much, and I think he'd be _so_ good at loving you even more that I want him to come live with us and be our family,” he explains. "Won’t that be fun?”

“Uh huh!” June nods, her little chin bouncing on his shoulder.

When he pulls back to kiss her head, Eddie has appeared at their side, so he gets a kiss too.

June scrunches her nose at that but can’t stop grinning. “Are you guys gonna get married?”

 _“Yes,”_ smiles Eddie, circling his arms around them both. “I’m going to help take care of you from now on, June,” he promises. _“And_ -”

Richie rattles a drum roll with his tongue-

“You and me will pick out what to wear for the wedding together,” Eddie says. “I hear _someone’s_ in the market for a poofy dress.”

“Oh, _wow!”_ June launches in his direction, strangling them all into a squirming three way hug.

“Woah!” Richie chokes. “Really feelin’ the love in the room.”

He gloms them tighter together and spins them around the kitchen in a tornado of declarations and dance. They’re gonna be so happy! They’re gonna love each other so much! They’re gonna clean up the kitchen and go out and find something fun to do! The sink is full and so is Richie’s heart.

Eventually June worms her way down, only so she can gallop around the kitchen, thrilled out of her gourd. “Does this mean we have to change our name!?” she asks. “Whitney’s mom changed all their last name when she got married, but she didn’t change it to anything _cool,_ like Butterfly or Starburst...”

“What a wasted opportunity!” says Richie, hopping to sit on the counter, out of her way. “If I didn’t have a couple decades of publicity under my belt keeping me in check, you bet I’d be Mr. Noodle, father of Little Noodle, husband of Spaghetti!”

Eddie gives Richie a wishful _someday_ look and catches one of June’s hands to keep twirling her around. 

“Even if Daddy doesn’t change his name, you and me could always trade,” he teases. “I’ll be June and you be Eddie.”

 _“Noo,”_ June guffaws, going around and around. “That’s silly!”

Richie laughs. “But Butterfly is perfectly normal?”

“Yes!”

“How about, you can decide a new name to call me, if you like?” Eddie offers. “I think Daddy is spoken for, but I bet you can come up with something.”

June spins to a stop, jaw dropped, amazed that she would be entrusted with such a choice. _“Anything?”_

“You know, something special,” says Richie. “Like how I call my mom ‘Mags’ for Margaret,” he says. 

June hums, staring up at Eddie and rubbing her chin. “Grammy always calls you ‘dear’. I like that. My Daddy and my Dear!”

Richie had anticipated some trial and error, but apparently by relentless example he has raised a nicknaming prodigy. “That’s so perfect,” he congratulates June.

The kiss from Eddie on the top of her head seals the deal.

  
  
-  
  
  


It’s _everyone’s_ big day really, so Richie’s not going to rag on June for the state of her dress. It _was_ a frothy white thing like little girls used to wear on Easter with a hat and gloves, but by the time they plug in the lights out back to begin, June has climbed into the dusty moving van to help with boxes, turned cartwheels on the lawn, and served Hawaiian punch to keep everyone hydrated. She’s a little schmutzy, a little green, a little pink, but she’s all theirs and they’re all hers and each other’s, now. _By the power vested in Mags._

They’ll get to rearranging the rest of the house in the next few days, but for tonight they really only worry about clearing the way to the record player. They leave open the sliding glass door and let the music and the fireflies drift in and out as they please- Herb Alpert and his trumpet deserve no less.

Eddie lays his head at Richie’s shoulder as they sway, fingers curled into the velvet of his lapel. Who knows what secondhand shop he and June found this suit in. It’s crazy the things you find, the people you run into when you least expect. Richie loves the spirit of it, though. A little girl mucking up a vintage dress. Blurring the dates with hopelessly unfashionable tailoring. If they can't really stamp it here and now, why not fudge it? Why can’t a couple of has-beens _have been,_ all this time?

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed that, this was my [checks notes] oh holy crap THIRTIETH "It" fic, and tenth miniseries fic, specifically, so- check those out! More art can be found on my twitter/tumblr/instagram @stitchyarts


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